The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 401 to 415.
Big Data and Reproductive Health in India: A Case Study of the Mother and Child Tracking System
https://cis-india.org/raw/big-data-reproductive-health-india-mcts
<b>In this case study undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development (BD4D) network, Ambika Tandon evaluates the Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) as data-driven initiative in reproductive health at the national level in India. The study also assesses the potential of MCTS to contribute towards the big data landscape on reproductive health in the country, as the Indian state’s imagination of health informatics moves towards big data.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Case study: <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/website/raw/master/bd4d/CIS_CaseStudy_AT_BigDataReproductiveHealthMCTS.pdf" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<hr />
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>The reproductive health information ecosystem in India comprises of a range of different databases across state and national levels. These collect data through a combination of manual and digital tools. Two national-level databases have been launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare - the Health Management Information System (HMIS) in 2008, and the MCTS in 2009. 4 The MCTS focuses on collecting data on maternal and child health. It was instituted due to reported gaps in the HMIS, which records monthly data across health programmes including reproductive health. There are several other state-level initiatives on reproductive health data that have either been subsumed into, or run in
parallel with, the MCTS.</p>
<p>With this case study, we aim to evaluate the MCTS as data-driven initiative in reproductive health at the national level. It will also assess its potential to contribute towards the big data landscape on reproductive health in the country, as the Indian state’s imagination of health informatics moves towards big data. The methodology for the case study involved a desk-based review of existing literature on the use of health information systems globally, as well as analysis of government reports, journal articles, media coverage, policy documents, and other material on the MCTS.</p>
<p>The first section of this report details the theoretical framing of the case study, drawing on the feminist critique of reproductive data systems. The second section maps the current landscape of reproductive health data produced by the state in India, with a focus on data flows, and barriers to data collection and analysis at the local and national level. The case of abortion data is used to further the argument of flawed data collection systems at the
national level. Section three briefly discusses the state’s imagination of reproductive health policy and the role of data systems through a discussion on the National Health Policy, 2017 and the National Health Stack, 2018. Finally, we make some policy recommendations and identify directions for future research, taking into account the ongoing shift towards big data globally to democratise reproductive healthcare.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/big-data-reproductive-health-india-mcts'>https://cis-india.org/raw/big-data-reproductive-health-india-mcts</a>
</p>
No publisherambikaBig DataData SystemsResearchers at WorkReproductive and Child HealthResearchFeaturedPublicationsBD4DHealthcareBig Data for Development2019-12-06T04:57:55ZBlog EntryBetween the Stirrup and the Ground: Relocating Digital Activism
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/stirrup-and-the-ground
<b>In this peer reviewed research paper, Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen draws on a research project that focuses on understanding new technology, mediated identities, and their relationship with processes of change in their immediate and extended environments in emerging information societies in the global south. It suggests that endemic to understanding digital activism is the need to look at the recalibrated relationships between the state and the citizens through the prism of technology and agency. The paper was published in Democracy & Society, a publication of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society, Volume 8, Issue 2, Summer 2011.</b>
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>The first decade of the 21st century has witnessed the simultaneous growth of the Internet and digital technologies on the one hand and political protests and mobilization on the other. As a result, some stakeholders attribute magical powers of social change and political transformation to these technologies.</p>
<p>In the post-Wikileaks world, governments try to censor the use of and access to information technologies in order to maintain the status quo (Domscheit-Berg 2011). With the expansion of markets, technology multinationals and service providers are trying to strike a delicate balance between ethics and pro6ts. Civil society organizations for their part, are seeking to counterbalance censorship and exploitation of the citizens’ rights. Within discourse and practice, there remains a dialectic between hope and despair: Hope that these technologies will change the world, and despair that we do not have any sustainable replicable models of technology-driven transformation despite four decades of intervention in the 6eld of information and communication technology (ICT).</p>
<p>This paper suggests that this dialectic is fruitless and results from too strong of a concentration on the functional role of technology. The lack of vocabulary to map and articulate the transitions that digital technologies bring to our earlier understanding of the state-market-citizen relationship, as well as our failure to understand technology as a paradigm that defines the domains of life, labour, and language, amplify this knowledge gap.</p>
<p>This paper draws on a research project that focuses on understanding new technology, mediated identities, and their relationship with processes of change in their immediate and extended environments in emerging information societies in the global south (Shah 2009). We suggest that endemic to understanding digital activism is the need to look at the recalibrated relationships between the state and the citizens through the prism of technology and agency.</p>
<h2>Context</h2>
<p>It is appropriate, perhaps, to begin a paper on digital activism, with a discussion of analogue activism[<a href="#1">1</a>] (Morozov 2010). In the recent revolutions and protests from Tunisia to Egypt and Iran to Kryzygystan, much attention has been given to the role of new media in organizing, orchestrating, performing, and shaping the larger public psyche and the new horizons of progressive governments. Global media has dubbed several of them as ‘Twitter Revolutions” and “Facebook Protests” because these technologies played an important role in the production of :ash-mobs, which, because of their visibility and numbers, became the face of the political protests in di)erent countries. Political scientists as well as technology experts have been trying to figure out what the role of Twitter and Facebook was in these processes of social transformation. Activists are trying to determine whether it is possible to produce replicable upscalable models that can be transplanted to other geo-political contexts to achieve similar results,[<a href="#2">2</a>] as well as how the realm of political action now needs to accommodate these developments.</p>
<p>Cyber-utopians have heralded this particular phenomenon of digital activists mobilizing in almost unprecedented numbers as a hopeful sign that resonates the early 20th century rhetoric of a Socialist Revolution (West and Raman 2009). (ey see this as a symptom of the power that ordinary citizens wield and the ways in which their voices can be ampli6ed, augmented, and consolidated using the pervasive computing environments in which we now live.</p>
<p>In a celebratory tone, without examining either the complex assemblages of media and government practices and policies that are implicated in these processes, they naively attribute these protests to digital technologies.</p>
<p>Cyber-cynics, conversely, insist that these technologies are just means and tools that give voice to the seething anger, hurt, and grief that these communities have harboured for many years under tyrannical governments and authoritarian regimes. They insist that digital technologies played no role in these events — they would have occurred anyway, given the right catalysts — and that this overemphasis on technology detracts from greater historical legacies, movements, and the courage and efforts of the people involved.</p>
<p>While these debates continue to ensue between zealots on conflicting sides, there are some things that remain constant in both positions: presumptions of what it means to be political, a narrow imagination of human-technology relationships, and a historically deterministic view of socio-political movements. While the objects and processes under scrutiny are new and unprecedented, the vocabulary, conceptual tools, knowledge frameworks, and critical perspectives remain unaltered. They attempt to articulate a rapidly changing world in a manner that accommodates these changes. Traditional approaches that produce a simplified triangulation of the state, market and civil society, with historically specified roles, inform these discourses, “where the state is the rule-maker, civil society the do-gooder and watchdog, and the private sector the enemy or hero depending on one’s ideological stand” (Knorringa 2008, 8).</p>
<p>Within the more diffuse world realities, where the roles for each sector are not only blurred but also often shared, things work differently. Especially when we introduce technology, we realize that the centralized structural entities operate in and are better understood through a distributed, multiple avatar model. For example, within public-private partnerships, which are new units of governance in emerging post-capitalist societies, the market often takes up protostatist qualities, while the state works as the beneficiary rather than the arbitrator of public delivery systems. In technology-state conflicts, like the well-known case of Google’s conflict with China (Drummond 2010), technology service providers and companies have actually emerged as the vanguards of citizens’ rights against states that seek to curb them.</p>
<p>Similarly, civil society and citizens are divided around the question of access to technology. The techno-publics are often exclusive and make certain analogue forms of citizenships obsolete. While there is a euphoria about the emergence of a multitude of voices online from otherwise closed societies, it is important to remember that these voices are mediated by the market and the state, and often have to negotiate with strong capillaries of power in order to gain the visibility and legitimacy for themselves. Additionally, the recalibration in the state-market-citizen triad means that there is certain disconnect from history which makes interventions and systemic social change that much more difficult.</p>
<h2>Snapshots</h2>
<p>We draw from our observations in the “Digital Natives with a Cause?”[<a href="#3">3</a>] research program, which brought together over 65 young people working with digital technologies towards social change, and around 40 multi-sector stakeholders in the field to decode practices in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between technology and politics.</p>
<p>The first case study is from Taiwan, where the traditionally accepted uni-linear idea of senders-intermediaries-passive receivers is challenged by adopting a digital information architecture model for a physical campaign.[<a href="#4">4</a>] The story not only provides insight into these blurred boundaries and roles, but also offers an understanding of the new realm of political intervention and processes of social transformation.</p>
<p>As YiPing Tsou (2010) from the Soft Revolt project in Taipei explains, "I have realised how the Web has not only virtually reprogrammed the way we think, talk, act and interact with the work but also reformatted our understanding of everyday life surrounded by all sorts of digital technologies."</p>
<p>Tsou’s own work stemmed from her critical doubt of the dominant institutions and structures in her immediate surroundings. Fighting the hyper-territorial rhetoric of the Internet, she deployed digital technologies to engage with her geo-political contexts. Along with two team members, she started the project to question and critique the rampant consumerism, which has emerged as the state and market in Taiwan collude to build more pervasive marketing infrastructure instead of investing in better public delivery systems. The project adopted a gaming aesthetic where the team produced barcodes, which when applied to existing products in malls and super markets, produced random pieces of poetry at the check-out counters instead of the price details that are expected. The project challenged the universal language of barcodes and mobilized large groups of people to spread these barcodes and create spaces of confusion, transient data doubles, and alternative ways of reading within globalized capitalist consumption spaces. The project also demonstrates how access to new forms of technology also leads to new information roles, creating novel forms of participation leading to interventions towards social transformation.</p>
<p>Nonkululeko Godana (2010) from South Africa does not think of herself as an activist in any traditional form. She calls herself a storyteller and talks of how technologies can amplify and shape the ability to tell stories. Drawing from her own context, she narrates the story of a horrific rape that happened to a young victim in a school campus and how the local and national population mobilized itself to seek justice for her. For Godana, the most spectacular thing that digital technologies of information and communication offer is the ability for these stories to travel in unexpected ways. Indeed, these stories grow as they are told. They morph, distort, transmute, and take new avatars, changing with each telling, but managing to help the message leap across borders, boundaries, and life-styles. She looks at storytelling as something that is innate to human beings who are creatures of information, and suggests that what causes revolution, what brings people together, what allows people to unify in the face of strife and struggle is the need to tell a story, the enchantment of hearing one, and the passion to spread it further so that even when the technologies die, the signal still lives, the message keeps on passing. As Clay Shirky, in his analysis of the first recorded political :ash-mob in Phillipines in 2001, suggests, "social media’s real potential lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere — which will produce change over years and decades, not weeks or months."</p>
<h2>Propositions</h2>
<p>These two stories are just a taste of many such narratives that abound the field of technology based social transformation and activism. In most cases, traditional lenses will not recognize these processes, which are transient and short-lived as having political consequence. When transformative value is ascribed to them, they are brought to bear the immense pressure of sustainability and scalability which might not be in the nature of the intervention. Moreover, as we have seen in these two cases, as well as in numerous others, the younger generation — these new groups of people using social media for political change, often called digital natives, slacktivists, or digital activists — renounce the earlier legacy of political action. They prefer to stay in this emergent undefined zone where they would not want an identity as a political person but would still make interventions and engage with questions of justice, equity, democracy, and access, using the new tools at their disposal to negotiate with their immediate socio-cultural and geo-political contexts.</p>
<p>In their everyday lives, Digital Natives are in different sectors of employment and sections of society. They can be students, activists, government officials, professionals, artists, or regular citizens who spend their time online often in circuits of leisure, entertainment and self-gratification. However, it is their intimate relationship with these processes, which is often deemed as ‘frivolous’ that enables them, in times of crises, to mobilize huge human and infrastructural resources to make immediate interventions.</p>
<p>It is our proposition that it is time to start thinking about digital activism as a tenuous process, which might often hide itself in capillaries of non-cause related actions but can be materialized through the use of digital networks and platforms when it is needed. Similarly, a digital activist does not necessarily have to be a full-time ideology spouting zealot, but can be a person who, because of intimate relationships with technologized forms of communication, interaction, networking, and mobilization, is able to transform him/ herself as an agent of change and attain a central position (which is also transitory and not eternal) in processes of social movement. Such a lens allows us to revisit our existing ideas of what it means to be political, what the new landscapes of political action are, how we account for processes of social change, and who the people are that emerge as agents of change in our rapidly digitizing world.</p>
<h3>About the Authors</h3>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span">NISHANT SHAH is Director-Research at the Bangalore based Centre for Internet and Society. He is one of the lead researchers for the “Digital Natives with a Cause?” knowledge programme and has interests in questions of digital identity, inclusion and social change.</span></p>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span">FIEKE JANSEN is based at the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos). She is the knowledge officer for the Digital Natives with a Cause? knowledge programme and her areas of </span><span class="Apple-style-span">interest are the role of digital technologies in social change processes.</span></p>
<h3><span class="Apple-style-span">References</span></h3>
<p>Domscheit-Berg, Daniel. 2011. <em>Inside Wikileaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website</em>. New York: Crown Publishers.</p>
<p>Drummond, David. 2010. “A New Approach to China.” Available at: http:// googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html.</p>
<p>Godana, Nonkululeko. 2011. “Change is Yelling: Are you Listening?” <em>Digital Natives Position Papers</em>. Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society publications. Available at: http://www.hivos.net/content/download/ 40567/260946/file/Position%20Papers.pdf. Retrieved: February 3, 2011.</p>
<p>Knorringa, Peter. 2010. A Balancing Act — Private Actors in Development, Inaugural Lecture ISS. Available at: http://www.iss.nl/News/Inaugural-Lecture-Professor-Peter-Knorringa. Retrieved: February 3, 2011.</p>
<p>Morozov, Evgeny. 2011. <em>The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom</em>. New York: Public Affairs.</p>
<p>Shirky, Clay. 2011. “The Political power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change.” <em>Foreign Affairs</em> 90, (1); p. 28-41.</p>
<p>Shah, Nishant and Sunil Abraham. 2009. “Digital Natives with a Cause.” Hivos Knowledge Programme. Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society publications. Available at: http://cis-india.org/research/dn-report. Retrieved: February 3, 2011.</p>
<p>Tsou, YiPing. 2010. “(Re)formatting Social Transformation in the Age of Digital Representation: On the Relationship of Technologies and Social Transformation”, <em>Digital Natives Position Papers</em>. Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society publications. Available at: http://www.hivos.net/ content/download/40567/260946/file/Position%20Papers.pdf. Retrieved: February 3, 2011.</p>
<p>West, Harry and Parvathi Raman. 2009. <em>Enduring Socialism: Exploration of Revolution and Transformation, Restoration and Continuation</em>. London: Berghahn Books.</p>
<h3><span class="Apple-style-span">End Notes</span></h3>
<p class="discreet"><a name="1">[1]Morozov looks at how ‘Digital Activism’ often feeds the very structures against we protest, with information that can prove to be counter productive to the efforts. The digital is still not ‘public’ in its ownership and a complex assemblage of service providers, media houses and governments often lead to a betrayal of sensitive information which was earlier protected in the use of analogue technologies of resistance.</a></p>
<p class="discreet"><a name="1"> </a></p>
<p class="discreet"><a name="2">[2]Following the revolutions in Egypt, China, worried that the model </a><a name="1">might be appropriated by its own citizens against China’s authoritarian </a><a name="1">regimes, decided to block “Jan25” and mentions of Egypt from </a><a name="1">Twitter like websites. More can be read here: http://yro.slashdot.org/ </a><span class="Apple-style-span"><a name="1">story/11/01/29/2110227/China-Blocks-Egypt-On-Twitter-Like-Site.</a></span></p>
<p class="discreet"><a name="1"> </a></p>
<p class="discreet"><a name="3">[3]More information about the programme can be found at </a><a name="1">http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/ </a><a name="1">Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause.</a></p>
<p class="discreet"><a name="1"> </a></p>
<p class="discreet"><a name="4">[4]Models of digital communication and networking have always imagined </a><a name="1">that the models would be valid only for the digital environments. Hence, </a><a name="1">the physical world still engages only with the one-to-many broadcast model, </a><a name="1">where the central authorities produce knowledge which is disseminated to the passive receivers who operate only as receptacles of information rather than bearers of knowledge. To challenge this requires a re-orientation of existing models and developing ways of translating the peer-to-peer structure in the physical world.</a></p>
<p><strong><span class="Apple-style-span">Cross-posted from Democracy & Society, read the original <a class="external-link" href="http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/CDACS-DS-15-v3-fnl.pdf">here</a></span></strong></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/stirrup-and-the-ground'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/stirrup-and-the-ground</a>
</p>
No publishernishantDigital ActivismWeb PoliticsResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2015-05-14T12:14:04ZBlog EntryBetween the Stirrup and the Ground: Relocating Digital Activism
https://cis-india.org/raw/between-the-stirrup-and-the-ground-relocating-digital-activism
<b>In this peer reviewed research paper, Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen draws on a research project that focuses on understanding new technology, mediated identities, and their relationship with processes of change in their immediate and extended environments in emerging information societies in the global south. It suggests that endemic to understanding digital activism is the need to look at the recalibrated relationships between the state and the citizens through the prism of technology and agency. The paper was published in Democracy & Society, a publication of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society, Volume 8, Issue 2, Summer 2011.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span"><em>Cross-posted from <a class="external-link" href="http://www.democracyandsociety.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/CDACS-DS-15-v3-fnl.pdf">Democracy and Society</a></em>.</span></p>
<hr />
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>The first decade of the 21st century has witnessed the simultaneous growth of the Internet and digital technologies on the one hand and political protests and mobilization on the other. As a result, some stakeholders attribute magical powers of social change and political transformation to these technologies.</p>
<p>In the post-Wikileaks world, governments try to censor the use of and access to information technologies in order to maintain the status quo (Domscheit-Berg 2011). With the expansion of markets, technology multinationals and service providers are trying to strike a delicate balance between ethics and profits. Civil Society Organizations for their part, are seeking to counterbalance censorship and exploitation of the citizens’ rights. Within discourse and practice, there remains a dialectic between hope and despair: Hope that these technologies will change the world, and despair that we do not have any sustainable replicable models of technology-driven transformation despite four decades of intervention in the 6eld of information and communication technology (ICT).</p>
<p>This paper suggests that this dialectic is fruitless and results from too strong of a concentration on the functional role of technology. The lack of vocabulary to map and articulate the transitions that digital technologies bring to our earlier understanding of the state-market-citizen relationship, as well as our failure to understand technology as a paradigm that defines the domains of life, labour, and language, amplify this knowledge gap.</p>
<p>This paper draws on a research project that focuses on understanding new technology, mediated identities, and their relationship with processes of change in their immediate and extended environments in emerging information societies in the global south (Shah 2009). We suggest that endemic to understanding digital activism is the need to look at the recalibrated relationships between the state and the citizens through the prism of technology and agency.</p>
<h2>Context</h2>
<p>It is appropriate, perhaps, to begin a paper on digital activism, with a discussion of analogue activism[<a href="#1">1</a>] (Morozov 2010). In the recent revolutions and protests from Tunisia to Egypt and Iran to Kryzygystan, much attention has been given to the role of new media in organizing, orchestrating, performing, and shaping the larger public psyche and the new horizons of progressive governments. Global media has dubbed several of them as ‘Twitter Revolutions” and “Facebook Protests” because these technologies played an important role in the production of :ash-mobs, which, because of their visibility and numbers, became the face of the political protests in di)erent countries. Political scientists as well as technology experts have been trying to figure out what the role of Twitter and Facebook was in these processes of social transformation. Activists are trying to determine whether it is possible to produce replicable upscalable models that can be transplanted to other geo-political contexts to achieve similar results,[<a href="#2">2</a>] as well as how the realm of political action now needs to accommodate these developments.</p>
<p>Cyber-utopians have heralded this particular phenomenon of digital activists mobilizing in almost unprecedented numbers as a hopeful sign that resonates the early 20th century rhetoric of a Socialist Revolution (West and Raman 2009). (ey see this as a symptom of the power that ordinary citizens wield and the ways in which their voices can be ampli6ed, augmented, and consolidated using the pervasive computing environments in which we now live.</p>
<p>In a celebratory tone, without examining either the complex assemblages of media and government practices and policies that are implicated in these processes, they naively attribute these protests to digital technologies.</p>
<p>Cyber-cynics, conversely, insist that these technologies are just means and tools that give voice to the seething anger, hurt, and grief that these communities have harboured for many years under tyrannical governments and authoritarian regimes. They insist that digital technologies played no role in these events — they would have occurred anyway, given the right catalysts — and that this overemphasis on technology detracts from greater historical legacies, movements, and the courage and efforts of the people involved.</p>
<p>While these debates continue to ensue between zealots on conflicting sides, there are some things that remain constant in both positions: presumptions of what it means to be political, a narrow imagination of human-technology relationships, and a historically deterministic view of socio-political movements. While the objects and processes under scrutiny are new and unprecedented, the vocabulary, conceptual tools, knowledge frameworks, and critical perspectives remain unaltered. They attempt to articulate a rapidly changing world in a manner that accommodates these changes. Traditional approaches that produce a simplified triangulation of the state, market and civil society, with historically specified roles, inform these discourses, “where the state is the rule-maker, civil society the do-gooder and watchdog, and the private sector the enemy or hero depending on one’s ideological stand” (Knorringa 2008, 8).</p>
<p>Within the more diffuse world realities, where the roles for each sector are not only blurred but also often shared, things work differently. Especially when we introduce technology, we realize that the centralized structural entities operate in and are better understood through a distributed, multiple avatar model. For example, within public-private partnerships, which are new units of governance in emerging post-capitalist societies, the market often takes up protostatist qualities, while the state works as the beneficiary rather than the arbitrator of public delivery systems. In technology-state conflicts, like the well-known case of Google’s conflict with China (Drummond 2010), technology service providers and companies have actually emerged as the vanguards of citizens’ rights against states that seek to curb them.</p>
<p>Similarly, civil society and citizens are divided around the question of access to technology. The techno-publics are often exclusive and make certain analogue forms of citizenships obsolete. While there is a euphoria about the emergence of a multitude of voices online from otherwise closed societies, it is important to remember that these voices are mediated by the market and the state, and often have to negotiate with strong capillaries of power in order to gain the visibility and legitimacy for themselves. Additionally, the recalibration in the state-market-citizen triad means that there is certain disconnect from history which makes interventions and systemic social change that much more difficult.</p>
<h2>Snapshots</h2>
<p>We draw from our observations in the “Digital Natives with a Cause?”[<a href="#3">3</a>] research program, which brought together over 65 young people working with digital technologies towards social change, and around 40 multi-sector stakeholders in the field to decode practices in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between technology and politics.</p>
<p>The first case study is from Taiwan, where the traditionally accepted uni-linear idea of senders-intermediaries-passive receivers is challenged by adopting a digital information architecture model for a physical campaign.[<a href="#4">4</a>] The story not only provides insight into these blurred boundaries and roles, but also offers an understanding of the new realm of political intervention and processes of social transformation.</p>
<p>As YiPing Tsou (2010) from the Soft Revolt project in Taipei explains, "I have realised how the Web has not only virtually reprogrammed the way we think, talk, act and interact with the work but also reformatted our understanding of everyday life surrounded by all sorts of digital technologies."</p>
<p>Tsou’s own work stemmed from her critical doubt of the dominant institutions and structures in her immediate surroundings. Fighting the hyper-territorial rhetoric of the Internet, she deployed digital technologies to engage with her geo-political contexts. Along with two team members, she started the project to question and critique the rampant consumerism, which has emerged as the state and market in Taiwan collude to build more pervasive marketing infrastructure instead of investing in better public delivery systems. The project adopted a gaming aesthetic where the team produced barcodes, which when applied to existing products in malls and super markets, produced random pieces of poetry at the check-out counters instead of the price details that are expected. The project challenged the universal language of barcodes and mobilized large groups of people to spread these barcodes and create spaces of confusion, transient data doubles, and alternative ways of reading within globalized capitalist consumption spaces. The project also demonstrates how access to new forms of technology also leads to new information roles, creating novel forms of participation leading to interventions towards social transformation.</p>
<p>Nonkululeko Godana (2010) from South Africa does not think of herself as an activist in any traditional form. She calls herself a storyteller and talks of how technologies can amplify and shape the ability to tell stories. Drawing from her own context, she narrates the story of a horrific rape that happened to a young victim in a school campus and how the local and national population mobilized itself to seek justice for her. For Godana, the most spectacular thing that digital technologies of information and communication offer is the ability for these stories to travel in unexpected ways. Indeed, these stories grow as they are told. They morph, distort, transmute, and take new avatars, changing with each telling, but managing to help the message leap across borders, boundaries, and life-styles. She looks at storytelling as something that is innate to human beings who are creatures of information, and suggests that what causes revolution, what brings people together, what allows people to unify in the face of strife and struggle is the need to tell a story, the enchantment of hearing one, and the passion to spread it further so that even when the technologies die, the signal still lives, the message keeps on passing. As Clay Shirky, in his analysis of the first recorded political :ash-mob in Phillipines in 2001, suggests, "social media’s real potential lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere — which will produce change over years and decades, not weeks or months."</p>
<h2>Propositions</h2>
<p>These two stories are just a taste of many such narratives that abound the field of technology based social transformation and activism. In most cases, traditional lenses will not recognize these processes, which are transient and short-lived as having political consequence. When transformative value is ascribed to them, they are brought to bear the immense pressure of sustainability and scalability which might not be in the nature of the intervention. Moreover, as we have seen in these two cases, as well as in numerous others, the younger generation — these new groups of people using social media for political change, often called digital natives, slacktivists, or digital activists — renounce the earlier legacy of political action. They prefer to stay in this emergent undefined zone where they would not want an identity as a political person but would still make interventions and engage with questions of justice, equity, democracy, and access, using the new tools at their disposal to negotiate with their immediate socio-cultural and geo-political contexts.</p>
<p>In their everyday lives, Digital Natives are in different sectors of employment and sections of society. They can be students, activists, government officials, professionals, artists, or regular citizens who spend their time online often in circuits of leisure, entertainment and self-gratification. However, it is their intimate relationship with these processes, which is often deemed as ‘frivolous’ that enables them, in times of crises, to mobilize huge human and infrastructural resources to make immediate interventions.</p>
<p>It is our proposition that it is time to start thinking about digital activism as a tenuous process, which might often hide itself in capillaries of non-cause related actions but can be materialized through the use of digital networks and platforms when it is needed. Similarly, a digital activist does not necessarily have to be a full-time ideology spouting zealot, but can be a person who, because of intimate relationships with technologized forms of communication, interaction, networking, and mobilization, is able to transform him/ herself as an agent of change and attain a central position (which is also transitory and not eternal) in processes of social movement. Such a lens allows us to revisit our existing ideas of what it means to be political, what the new landscapes of political action are, how we account for processes of social change, and who the people are that emerge as agents of change in our rapidly digitizing world.</p>
<h3>About the Authors</h3>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span">NISHANT SHAH is Director-Research at the Bangalore based Centre for Internet and Society. He is one of the lead researchers for the “Digital Natives with a Cause?” knowledge programme and has interests in questions of digital identity, inclusion and social change.</span></p>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span">FIEKE JANSEN is based at the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos). She is the knowledge officer for the Digital Natives with a Cause? knowledge programme and her areas of </span><span class="Apple-style-span">interest are the role of digital technologies in social change processes.</span></p>
<h2><span class="Apple-style-span">References</span></h2>
<p>Domscheit-Berg, Daniel. 2011. <em>Inside Wikileaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website</em>. New York: Crown Publishers.</p>
<p>Drummond, David. 2010. “A New Approach to China.” Available at: http:// googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html.</p>
<p>Godana, Nonkululeko. 2011. “Change is Yelling: Are you Listening?” <em>Digital Natives Position Papers</em>. Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society publications. Available at: http://www.hivos.net/content/download/ 40567/260946/file/Position%20Papers.pdf. Retrieved: February 3, 2011.</p>
<p>Knorringa, Peter. 2010. A Balancing Act — Private Actors in Development, Inaugural Lecture ISS. Available at: http://www.iss.nl/News/Inaugural-Lecture-Professor-Peter-Knorringa. Retrieved: February 3, 2011.</p>
<p>Morozov, Evgeny. 2011. <em>The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom</em>. New York: Public Affairs.</p>
<p>Shirky, Clay. 2011. “The Political power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change.” <em>Foreign Affairs</em> 90, (1); p. 28-41.</p>
<p>Shah, Nishant and Sunil Abraham. 2009. “Digital Natives with a Cause.” Hivos Knowledge Programme. Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society publications. Available at: http://cis-india.org/research/dn-report. Retrieved: February 3, 2011.</p>
<p>Tsou, YiPing. 2010. “(Re)formatting Social Transformation in the Age of Digital Representation: On the Relationship of Technologies and Social Transformation”, <em>Digital Natives Position Papers</em>. Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society publications. Available at: http://www.hivos.net/ content/download/40567/260946/file/Position%20Papers.pdf. Retrieved: February 3, 2011.</p>
<p>West, Harry and Parvathi Raman. 2009. <em>Enduring Socialism: Exploration of Revolution and Transformation, Restoration and Continuation</em>. London: Berghahn Books.</p>
<h2><span class="Apple-style-span">End Notes</span></h2>
<p class="discreet"><a name="1">[1]</a> Morozov looks at how ‘Digital Activism’ often feeds the very structures against we protest, with information that can prove to be counter productive to the efforts. The digital is still not ‘public’ in its ownership and a complex assemblage of service providers, media houses and governments often lead to a betrayal of sensitive information which was earlier protected in the use of analogue technologies of resistance.</p>
<p class="discreet"><a name="1"> </a></p>
<p class="discreet"><a name="2">[2]</a> Following the revolutions in Egypt, China, worried that the model might be appropriated by its own citizens against China’s authoritarian regimes, decided to block “Jan25” and mentions of Egypt from Twitter like websites. More can be read here: <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/29/2110227/China-Blocks-Egypt-On-Twitter-Like-Site">http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/29/2110227/China-Blocks-Egypt-On-Twitter-Like-Site</a>.</p>
<p class="discreet"><a name="3">[3]</a> More information about the programme can be found <a href="http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause">here</a>.</p>
<p class="discreet"><a name="4">[4]</a> Models of digital communication and networking have always imagined that the models would be valid only for the digital environments. Hence, the physical world still engages only with the one-to-many broadcast model, where the central authorities produce knowledge which is disseminated to the passive receivers who operate only as receptacles of information rather than bearers of knowledge. To challenge this requires a re-orientation of existing models and developing ways of translating the peer-to-peer structure in the physical world.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/between-the-stirrup-and-the-ground-relocating-digital-activism'>https://cis-india.org/raw/between-the-stirrup-and-the-ground-relocating-digital-activism</a>
</p>
No publishernishantDigital ActivismDigital NativesResearchNet CulturesPublicationsResearchers at Work2015-10-25T05:58:59ZBlog EntryBetween Platform and Pandemic: Migrants in India's Gig Economy
https://cis-india.org/raw/caught-between-the-platform-and-the-pandemic-locating-migrants-in-indias-gig-economy
<b>In response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in India, the central government announced a nationwide lockdown in March 2020. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Initially this was organised for three weeks, but it stretched on for over three months. With a mere four hours’ notice before banning all non-‘essential’ economic activities overnight, the Indian government imposed what has been described as <a href="https://scroll.in/article/957564/not-china-not-italy-indias-coronavirus-lockdown-is-the-harshest-in-the-world">one of the most stringent lockdowns worldwide</a>. It shut down the railways, inter-state bus services, and all industrial, commercial, cultural and religious activities, bringing the economy to a standstill. In the weeks that followed this announcement, hundreds of poor migrant workers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-coronavirus-lockdown-migrant-workers/2020/03/27/a62df166-6f7d-11ea-a156-0048b62cdb51_story.html">walked</a> thousands of kilometers from major cities back to their villages, as the lockdown gutted their livelihood without providing any safety nets. Images of migrant workers traveling by foot for days forced the Indian public to acknowledge the existence and struggles of migrant workers. The pandemic has exposed the frailty of their livelihoods and brought their vulnerability into sharp focus.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The ‘gig’ economy in particular shapes the lives and livelihoods of a large migrant workforce. Gig workers working for on-demand platform services have been adversely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Cab-hailing services </span><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/coronavirus-india-lockdown-wheels-stuck-but-worries-are-many-for-ola-uber-drivers-6346527/">came to a standstill</a><span> in several Indian cities as the central government imposed a nationwide lockdown for over two months, restricting people’s movements. Food delivery and home-based services were </span><a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/covid19-lockdown-online-delivery-of-food-items-is-essential-service-but-don-t-rely-on-it-for-your-dinner-1659490-2020-03-25">deemed ‘essential’ services</a><span> and continued to operate during the lockdown. However, migrant workers received </span><a href="https://scroll.in/article/959766/by-crowdfunding-benefits-for-embattled-workers-app-based-services-are-evading-their-own-obligations">little support</a><span> from the platform companies as well as the government. Despite the overwhelming presence of migrants in the workforce, discussions of the so-called ‘platform economy’ have rarely focused on their vulnerabilities.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><strong>Neither here nor there</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>In 2000, Omer (all names are pseudonyms) migrated to Hyderabad from a village in the neighbouring Nagarkurnool district. He worked as a cab driver for a travel agency in the city. After working in the city for five years, he brought his wife and children to live with him. When Uber and Ola launched in Hyderabad in 2014, he became a ‘driver partner’ providing on-demand cab services. The nationwide lockdown since March 2020 gutted his livelihood, as movement was severely restricted. The burden of rent and living expenses in the absence of his regular income forced Omer to return to his village in Nagarkurnool district. He weighed his earning potential as a cab driver against the risk of being infected and chose to leave the city.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, the choice to leave the city did not exist for all. Mani, a cab driver now based in Chennai, had moved to the city 10 years ago from a neighbouring town, Ranipet, to find employment as a driver. Before joining Ola, he worked as a night shift driver for an IT company in the city. In the wake of the pandemic and lockdown, he avoided returning to his hometown fearing the wrath of lenders he owed money to. He had taken out a loan while he could still work over 10 hours a day. Lenders in towns such as Ranipet are known to visit the homes of borrowers and harass them in the presence of family and neighbours. Fearing public humiliation, Mani decided to stay in Chennai. Similarly, Jagan, another driver in Hyderabad, also chose not to return to his village which was just 80kms from the city. He explained that only those who owned land could afford to return to the village. Without any land or house, he had nothing to go back to.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Jagan and Mani were unable to earn their livelihood during the lockdown. Fuel prices were a major concern for workers in cab-hailing services as well as food delivery. Within three months of the lockdown, the price of petrol was increased by about Rs. 14 (approx. $0.19). Far from accounting for this rise in fuel prices, on-demand platforms reduced the per kilometer rates for workers. For instance, Swiggy, a popular on-demand food delivery company, <a href="https://thewire.in/labour/swiggy-delivery-executives-strike-in-chennai-and-hyderabad-over-reduction-in-payment">brought down</a> the per-kilometer rate for its delivery executives from Rs. 35 (approx. $0.48) per delivery to Rs.15 (approx. $0.21). Since the lockdown in March, platform workers have staged <a href="https://inc42.com/infocus/year-end-review-2020/from-swiggy-to-ola-a-year-of-protests-by-indias-gig-workers/">repeated strikes</a>, protesting against the plummeting rates, suspension of incentives and demanding extension of moratorium on loan repayments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Those who were unable to return to their hometown or village had to find alternate sources of income to continue to sustain their families’ basic needs. Both Jagan and Mani began working as contract labour in nearby construction sites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For Omer, who returned to his village, things were not great either. A couple of months after his return, he was still on the lookout for a job while occasionally driving a tractor or lorry. Having lived in the city for close to two decades, returning to his village had not been easy. Besides the struggle to find gainful employment, adjusting to rural life had been a challenge:</p>
<p><em>I am 40 years old – the chances of me getting a job is negative… my situation has become like ‘Dhobi ka kutta na ghar ka na ghat ka’ [I belong neither here nor there] </em>– Omer</p>
<p><strong>Migrant Workers in a Gig Economy</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Even though the above narratives of migrant workers are specific to the challenges presented by COVID-19, the labour and livelihood outcomes are a result of structural conditions long preceding the pandemic’s outbreak.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Reports suggest that a <a href="https://www.livemint.com/companies/start-ups/delhi-and-not-bengaluru-is-the-place-to-be-for-gig-economy-workers-1555013405684.html">significant proportion of platform workers in Indian cities are migrants</a> who moved there in search of employment. While the exact magnitude of migrants engaged in digital platforms is hard to discern, our interviews with trade union leaders and migrant platform workers indicated that intra-state migrants from neighboring peri-urban and rural districts constitute a large part of the platform workforce. Dharmendra, who heads Indian Delivery Lions—a union of food delivery partners in Jaipur – pointed out that as rural India remains starved of adequate livelihood opportunities, people are pushed to the city in search of greener pastures. <a href="http://labourbureau.gov.in/RLE%202K%204-5%20Chapter%202.htm">Even for those engaged in farm activities, seasonal unemployment is a recurrent phenomenon</a>. This is amplified by the deteriorating climatic conditions, which further pushes seasonal agrarian workers into the urban informal sector. Thus, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/39244178/Climate_change_Agrarian_distress_and_the_role_of_digital_labour_markets_evidence_from_Bengaluru_Karnataka">rural agrarian workers facing seasonal unemployment engage in digital labour markets as a short-term adaptive strategy.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In terms of demographic profiles, recent migrants to the city, especially those hailing from a different state, and younger migrants typically opt to work in the food delivery sectorSuch financial constraints also impact migrant workers engaged with ride-hailing apps, as they are less likely to own a car. Owning a bike (for food delivery) is far less expensive than owning a car (for transportation services), which incurs more expenses and leads to a higher debt burden and longer repayment commitments. Instead, they usually <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/ifat-itf-protecting-workers-in-digital-platform-economy-ola-uber-occupational-health-safety-report/">drive leased cars</a> from the on-demand service companies, or are employed at a fixed wage by car-owners who have attached themselves to Ola or Uber. In both these arrangements, migrant gig workers are under pressure to pay a fixed daily fee (for the lease) or meet the car-owners’ targets. Hence, they do not enjoy much, if any, agency over their time or work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Migrant workers who are already in cities tend to transition to on-demand gig work. For migrant workers like Mani and Omer, on-demand work with its lucrative incentives and promise of flexibility presented an appealing alternative to their under-paying jobs that hardly met their needs. Migrant workers are economically more vulnerable; most of their earnings go into paying rent and repaying debt while barely managing their living expenses or sending remittances back home. Vinay Sarathy, the President of Food Delivery Partners Struggle Committee, pointed out that <em>“many migrant bachelors live together cramped up in a single room, to save on rent and send more remittance to cope with financial hardship back home.”</em> Such struggles, unique to migrants, often remain invisible.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><em>“Landlords are not accommodative, security is an issue. Everything is so much more expensive. Schooling, for instance, is costly. In the village, Rs. 3000 ($41 approx) is sufficient for school fees, but in the city, it is not less than Rs. 8000 ($109 approx). Rent is a major concern too. 80% of income goes on rent and school fees. Only the remaining can be for daily expenditure</em>”. – Omer, a gig worker in the transportation sector</p>
<p>The lack of social institutions to support migrant gig workers in the city and the government’s failure to provide long-due welfare measures frequently leave them on the city’s fringes.</p>
<p>Against such a backdrop, the platforms’ lucrative income stream fulfilled migrant workers’ basic desire to secure a stable livelihood. So much so that even migrant workers like Mani and Jagan, who were previously engaged in salaried driving jobs, switched to platforms, tempted by the prospect of improved earnings. The chance to be a ‘partner’ with the ‘flexibility’ to decide one’s work timings made platforms an appealing alternative to low-waged precarious work in the <a href="https://www.firstpost.com/business/covid-19-impact-informal-economy-workers-excluded-from-most-govt-measures-be-it-cash-transfers-or-tax-benefits-8354051.html">unorganised sector, where migrant workers are generally employed</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the initial motivation to join platforms resulted from the expectation of better income, improved working conditions, and the perceived social standing of being attached to a company, these <a href="https://www.epw.in/engage/article/ola-uber-workers-platform-gig-economy-earnings">aspirations remain unfulfilled.</a> Inadvertently, migrant workers’ movement towards on-demand work ensured a steady supply of gig workers for on-demand service companies, which consolidated their presence in the service sector. After successfully capturing the market, companies started <a href="https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/confronting-precarious-work">slashing incentives</a> for all workers. Such impunity and indifference wielded by platforms, in large part, can be attributed to the guaranteed supply of migrant workers. The acute vulnerability of being unemployed compels distressed rural migrants from nearby districts and suburbs to take up any job, regardless of how exploitative it may be. This latent supply of migrant workers gives platform companies the leverage to arbitrarily depress incentives, extract larger commissions, and even dismiss workers. Migrant workers thus become the de-facto <a href="https://rupe-india.org/70/reserve.html#note29">“reserve army of labour”</a> for on-demand companies.</p>
<p><strong>Comply or quit?</strong></p>
<p>In the aftermath of the Covid-19 lockdown, migrant gig worker’s livelihoods have been reduced to a hand-to-mouth existence, foregrounding the fatal overlap between the two axes of vulnerability: migration and gig work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Historically, migrant workers have been concentrated in occupations characterised by precarity and informal work arrangements without fixed-pay or binding contracts. Workers who transitioned to on-demand platforms were motivated by the promise of better conditions of work and pay. The initial appeal led them to view platforms as a dignified alternative to their profession. Many were also lured by the notion of independence and flexibility afforded by the platform. To be one’s boss and not be answerable to anyone was unheard of and a welcome change to the subservience that most workers had grudgingly internalized as a professional prerequisite. However, contrary to the big claims and initial promises, platforms began to replicate work arrangements in the informal sector. The result is that workers are rarely provided fair wages, social security, or paid leave. There is no meaningful choice for them to exercise, as they are effectively left with two alternatives—comply or quit.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Trapped between exploitative working conditions and being unemployed, workers lack any real negotiating power. Even as gig workers across the country continue to protest for better work conditions, platforms remain indifferent, assured of the guaranteed labour supply. As summarized by Dharmendra, <em>“the agenda of the platforms presently is to recruit new workers – they have already begun advertising for jobs even amidst the pandemic, as incidents of protests keep rising! We’re expecting that they’ll fire old workers (engaged in protests) and recruit those who are presently unemployed”</em>.</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Kaarika Das</strong> is Research Scholar at NIEPA and <strong>Srravya C</strong> is researcher in the Humanizing Automation project at IIIT Bangalore. This work was produced as a part of their research with the Centre for Internet and Society, India.</p>
<p><em>We would like to thank Ambika Tandon, Aayush Rathi and Kaveri Medappa for their inputs and feedback at various stages of this research. We are grateful for the support from the Internet Society Foundation to the Centre for Internet and Society, India (CIS), which made this research possible. A full report on migration and the gig economy in India is forthcoming on CIS’s website. </em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/caught-between-the-platform-and-the-pandemic-locating-migrants-in-indias-gig-economy'>https://cis-india.org/raw/caught-between-the-platform-and-the-pandemic-locating-migrants-in-indias-gig-economy</a>
</p>
No publisherKaarika Das and Srravya CFuture of WorkRAW BlogResearchCISRAWRAW ResearchResearchers at Work2021-12-06T16:04:07ZBlog EntryBangalore + Sustainability Summit
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/bangalore-sustainability-summit
<b>The power of technology to create youth engagement and positive social change were discussed at the Bangalore + Sustainability Summit on September 21, 2013 at the Centre for Internet and Society(CIS) , Bangalore. The event, in conjunction with the Social Good Summit that took place in New York during the same weekend, explored creative and tech-based avenues to solve sustainability challenges and promote social good.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Our interest in understanding the role of digital natives in our society stems from the possibilities technology brings for the social good. This concept, a variation of the notion of the ‘common good’, is nowadays a popular and widely utilized term, both in its secular and religious variations. It conveys values and actions that benefit the well-being of society and in Mill’s utilitarian view: one which promotes the moral, intellectual and active traits of its citizens. Nowadays, its social justice undertones are part of the human rights discourse that characterizes twenty-first century civil society and citizen action, which are at the same time becoming increasingly connected in the context of network societies, leading to the new socialized form of the common good. The buzzword was there at the core of the <a class="external-link" href="http://mashable.com/sgs/#about"><strong>Social Good Summit</strong></a> that took place in New York from September 22 to 24, as well as of the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.plussocialgood.org/Post/social-good-summit-ashoka-india/836a3a1e-ea21-4a96-bdbd-bb4fe58a8612"><strong>Bangalore + Sustainability</strong></a> workshop, organized by <a class="external-link" href="http://india.ashoka.org/"><strong>Ashoka India</strong></a> in partnership with <a class="external-link" href="http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/1837024/report-lungi-warriors-on-a-mission-to-rid-bangalore-of-blackspots"><strong>Green Lungi</strong></a> and <a class="external-link" href="https://www.idex.org/"><strong>IDEX</strong></a> on September 21 at CIS office in Bangalore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Local leaders and change-makers in Bangalore discussed the power of technology and its potential to provide sustainable solutions for the city’s greatest challenges at the event. The workshop was dynamic in structure and inspiring in content, as the participants were divided into make-a-thon sessions to collaboratively design technology-based prototypes that tackle the problems with feasible and impactful solutions. In the opening session Meera Vijayann, consultant for Ashoka India, commented on the nature of sustainability and how technological design must tackle all of its fronts, including environmental, government, public and citizenship engagement, to name a few, establishing a working framework for the day. This was followed by four panelists who gave brief talks highlighting their professional backgrounds and some of the lessons learned in the pursuit of social good.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The first to present was <strong>Kuldeep Dantewadia,</strong> founder of <a class="external-link" href="http://reapbenefit.org/">Reap Benefit</a>, a start-up that provides low-cost solutions to encourage behavioural change around waste, water and biodiversity management. Inspiring attendees to “be fools”, and take chances, based on <a class="external-link" href="http://vimeo.com/27321796">Ranjan Maliks’s talk: The Fool and his kind of Innovation</a>, he spoke about environmental issues as a man-made disease with behavioural solutions, as opposed to an external crisis requiring intervention. His social approach within a workshop discussing the power of technology was, as the representative of IDEX, Daniel Oxenhandler said, a great entry point to start thinking of the leaps of good-will and risks to be taken in the field of social change. Encouraging the participants to be foolish, he invited them to be bold and inventive with their ideas throughout the day.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">He was followed by <strong><a class="external-link" href="http://cargocollective.com/raahulkhadaliya">Raahul Khadaliya</a>,</strong> who defines himself as a thinker, observer and explorer of design for sustainability. He delved on the ultimate purpose of design and framed it as a problem-solving tool that ought to bring benefits for the masses. Stressing that design is not only concerned about how tools works, but instead on “how they work in a given environment” he brought up the importance of context and historicity in design, an important discussion point , incidentally also explored by the <strong>‘<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/hivos-knowledge-programme-june-14-2013-nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway" class="external-link">Making Change</a>’</strong> project by CIS in conjunction with the HIVOS Knowledge Program. Digital technologies and derived platforms do not carry value in themselves when pursuing social change, unless they speak to the locality and respond to the crises lingering in their given ecosystem. Khadaliya ended his presentation with a slide that read “design is a behaviour”, adding to the recurring theme of the day: the need for citizen behavioural change, being it in creation, participation or conservation of resources.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Coming from a different angle, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.bpac.in/ms-kalpana-kar/"><strong>Kalpana Kar</strong></a>, who contributed to the Bangalore Agenda Task Force in an urban governance project, gave an insightful account of the role of public policy and private-public partnerships. Her talk came across as an insightful set of advice tackling considerations around space and how it intersects with collectives and their sense of entitlement and territoriality. Notions of power, pride and hierarchical arrangements are determining accessibility to public spaces, a highly relevant reflection that also applies to digital participation in online platforms, as explored in the Digital Natives framework. She added that creating technological solutions with social impact calls for a change in our behaviour and how we gauge our individual needs against the social good. “Enthusiasm can take you far, but not further”, for which she appealed to participants to “be real, practical and foolish” in their interventions and focus on designs that have impact with scale and economic viability. This vision puts the private sector on a par with sustainability state policies, and sets the ground for mechanisms of social accountability as an important complement of technological design.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The last panelist <a class="external-link" href="http://hackteria.org/wiki/index.php/HackteriaLab_2013_Participants#Sharath_Chandra_Ram"><strong>Sharath Chandra Ram</strong></a>, researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society and instructor at the Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology brought the aforementioned points together and based his talk on alternatives to bridge the distance between the citizen and the state through online-offline interventions. He focused on the enabling of citizen voices and freedoms in governance as a fundamental mandate for tech innovators of our times. “Models must maintain cultural specificities and have a holistic approach” to facilitate engagement in the globalized socio-political arena. He provided three of examples of citizen involvement in information and state governance: citizen journalism, citizen uprisings and citizen governance, coupled with a showcase of low-cost technologies designed at the <a class="external-link" href="http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotbangalore/">CIS Metaculture Media Lab</a> that would allow larger online access and offline participation if made pervasive. His pragmatic approach provided tangible and innovative examples, using every day apparatuses, to enable connection and overcome the social and political roadblocks in our networks; an interesting and inspiring segue into team formation and the make-a-thon to come up next.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Following the panel, the 40+ participants divided into working groups moderated by the organizers and delved into discussion on one out the five proposed problem statements: road safety, waste management, gender-inclusive spaces, forestation and public infrastructures. Brainstorm props provided, the groups created mind maps, Lego structures and comic strips to shape, frame and later pitch their idea to the rest of the workshop. While the use of technology was mandatory, the social good impact brought forward by these apps and campaigns took precedence in the presentations. The event all in all embodied an opportunity to bring ideas, skills and experience together from their different walks of life and yield innovation. In fact, as Ira Snissar, Venture Associate for Ashoka mentioned in her closing speech: three or four of the presented ideas had the potential to comprise business plans for future start-ups. The remark concluded the session by highlighting the need to create marketable and economically viable solutions to ensure sustainability of social good tools in market systems, defeating the long-standing tensions between corporate interests and social responsibility.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The four themes brought forward by the panelists: audacious innovation, large-scale design, power negotiations and citizen governance, as well as the group discussions reiterated a fundamental idea throughout the day: the need for behavioral change in the name of social good. While the state, the private sector and of course technologies were present as important actors in the making of change, the citizen was framed as the main engine and beneficiary of these processes. Stronger citizen engagement, improved negotiation between individual and collective needs, and diminished contestation in spaces of power are among the main objectives to attain these long-sought social good objectives. Technological solutions come across as enablers and amplifiers, perhaps necessary in a networked environment, yet not sufficient if not coupled with sustainable behavioural change. In this respect the question that should precede events like this one should focus on the substance behind the summit’s buzzword: what does ‘the social good’ entail? And attempt to understand the alignments of these understandings considering different models of citizenship and activism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As of now, the implications and nuances of the social good remain under-theorized and lack epistemological consensus, yet the concept still represents an interesting pathway of research within the Digital Natives project. Is it possible to instill the need for behavioural change in the social imaginary? Is it feasible to establish solidarity networks through pervasive technologies? These are some of the avenues to be taken at the aftermath of the Bangalore + Sustainability event. The willingness to work together towards what benefits all was very prominent in the summit, suggesting that the feel-good nature of the concept and its social justice foundations make it a powerful drive to mobilize people and ideas. The challenge remains on how to extrapolate it and as advised by the panelists, have it derive into large scale impact among the masses.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Sources:</strong></p>
<ol style="text-align: justify;">
<li>“7 Definitions 4 Social Good” Armchair Advocates. Last modified August 21<sup>st</sup>, 2012. Accessed September 23<sup>rd</sup>, 2013<a href="http://armchairadvocates.com/2012/08/21/the-7-definitions-4-social-good-back2school-yourself-series/">http://armchairadvocates.com/2012/08/21/the-7-definitions-4-social-good-back2school-yourself-series/</a></li>
<li> “Mill’s Moral and Political Philosophy” Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Last modified October 9<sup>th</sup>, 2007. Accessed September 23<sup>rd</sup>, 2013 <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#LibDemComGoo">http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/#LibDemComGoo</a></li>
<li>Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? <em>Hivos Knowledge Program. </em>April 30, 2013</li>
<li>“Social Good Summit 2013” accessed September 23<sup>rd</sup>, 2013, <a href="http://mashable.com/sgs/#about">http://mashable.com/sgs/#about</a></li>
<li>“Social Good Summit: Ashoka India”, accessed September 23<sup>rd</sup>, 2013, <a href="http://www.plussocialgood.org/Post/social-good-summit-ashoka-india/836a3a1e-ea21-4a96-bdbd-bb4fe58a8612">http://www.plussocialgood.org/Post/social-good-summit-ashoka-india/836a3a1e-ea21-4a96-bdbd-bb4fe58a8612</a>
<ol></ol>
</li></ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/bangalore-sustainability-summit'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/bangalore-sustainability-summit</a>
</p>
No publisherdenisseWeb PoliticsResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2015-04-17T10:48:52ZBlog EntryBack When the Past had a Future: Being Precarious in a Network Society
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/aprja-net-researching-bwpwap-nishant-shah-back-when-the-past-had-a-future
<b>We live in Network Societies. This phrase has been so bastardised to refer to the new information turn mediated by digital technologies, that we have stopped paying attention to what the Network has become. Networks are everywhere. They have become the default metaphor of our times, where everything from infrastructure assemblies to collectives of people, are all described through the lens of a network.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This article by Nishant Shah was published in a peer-reviewed newspaper <a class="external-link" href="http://www.aprja.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/researching_bwpwap_large.pdf">Researching BWPWAP</a>. The write-up is on Page 3.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are no longer just human beings living in socially connected, politically identified communities. Instead, we have become actors, creating archives of traces and transactions, generating traffic and working as connectors in the ever expanding fold of the network.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The network is an opaque metaphor, conflating description and explanation. So it becomes the object to be studied, the originary context that produces itself, and the explanatory framework that accounts for itself. In other words, the network was our past – it gives us an account of who we were, it is our present – it defines the context of all our activities, and it is our future – where we do everything to support the network because it is the only future that we can imagine for ourselves. It is this flattening characteristic of networks that are diagrammatically mapped, cartographically reproduced, and presented outside of and oblivious to temporality, that produces a condition of the future that can no longer be imagined through our everyday lives.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Networks neither promise nor deliver a flattened utopia of coexistence and decentralised power. Networks are, in fact, quite aware of the structures of inequity and conditions of privilege they create and perpetuate: the only way to recognise the existence of a network is to be outside of it, the only aspiration to belong to a network is to be kept outside of it when you recognise it. Networks create themselves as simultaneously ubiquitous and scarce, of everpresent and ephemeral, creating a new ontology for our being human – an ontology of precariousness, contingent upon erasure of our histories, archives of our present, and unimaginable futures; futures we are not ready for, and don’t have strategies to occupy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I remember the times, before networks became the default conditions of being human, when kids, negotiating the variegated temporalities of their past-present-futures, would often begin their speculations on future, by saying, "When I grow up...". In that hope of growing up, was the potential for radical political action, the possibility of social reconstruction. In network societies, though, time has no currency. It has been replaced by attentions, flows of information and actions, and do not offer a tomorrow to grow into.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There is no future to help mitigate the exigencies of the present. And with the overwhelming emphasis on archiving the present, there is no more a coherent future that can be accounted for in the vocabulary that the network develops to explain itself, and the hypothetical world outside it.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/aprja-net-researching-bwpwap-nishant-shah-back-when-the-past-had-a-future'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/aprja-net-researching-bwpwap-nishant-shah-back-when-the-past-had-a-future</a>
</p>
No publishernishantFeaturedHabits of LivingResearchers at WorkDigital Humanities2013-02-12T06:16:12ZBlog EntryAugust 2015 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2015-bulletin
<b></b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We are happy to share with you the eighth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (August 2015). The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at <a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters">http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters</a>.</p>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify;">Highlights</h2>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Researchers at Work programme has published a book titled <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/digital-activism-in-asia-reader"><em>Digital Activism in Asia Reader</em></a> exploring in detail digital activism in Asia. The Reader was edited by Nishant Shah, P.P. Sneha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay with support from Anirudh Sridhar, Denisse Albornoz, and Verena Getahun.</li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>The <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/raw/civil-society-organisations-and-internet-governance-in-india-open-review">pre-publication drafts of two sections</a> written by Sumandro Chattapadhyay for the third volume (2000-2010) of the <em>Asia Internet History</em> series edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon have been posted for open-review process.</li>
<li>As part of the 'Studying Internets in India' series, RAW published blog entries on <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_governing-speech-on-the-internet">Governing Speech on the Internet</a> and <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_mock-calling">Mock-Calling - Ironies of Outsourcing and the Aspirations of an Individual</a>. </li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li style="text-align: justify;">NVDA team <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-in-e-speak-hindi">conducted a workshop</a> at Jeevan Jyoti School for the Blind, Varanasi from August 26 to 28, 2015. Eighty five students and 13 teachers took part in the training programme. NVDA team had conducted another <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-espeak-marathi">workshop</a> earlier in Nashik. The workshop was conducted in June. A batch of 17 Special Educators and teachers of the blind attended the workshop.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Maggie Huang, Arpita Sengupta and Paavni Anand as part of the Pervasive Technologies project <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comparative-transparency-review-of-collective-management-organisations-in-india-uk-usa"> co-authored a research paper </a> that seeks to compare the publicly available information on the websites of music collective management organizations ("CMOs") operating within India, the United States, and the United Kingdom.</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">
Amulya Purushothama, Nehaa Chaudhari and Varun Baliga in a blog entry have delved into the question of
what the mandate of the <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-what-have-sectoral-innovation-councils-been-doing-on-ipr">Sectoral Innovation Council</a> is, what its activities are, and what vision for IPR development in India has it put forth. An RTI Application has been filed by CIS to attain information on these issues.</li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li style="text-align: justify;"> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-introduction">In a blog post</a>, Amulya Purushothama announced our new MHRD IPR Chair Series and has charted the sequence of events, starting from the establishment of MHRD IPR Chairs, to discussions surrounding their purpose and functioning, to concerns surrounding the lack of information about the IPR Chairs, the first round of RTIs that CIS had filed in regard to this and the responses it solicited. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"> Subhashish Panigrahi <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kisorachandrananachampu-on-odia-wikisource">interviewed Prateek Pattanaik</a>. Prateek has not just digitized as many as 54 Odia-language poetry dating early 18th century but has also annotated, both poetic and prosaic translation in his blogs "Sri Jagannatha" and "Utkal Sangeet". He has also published a complete book "Kisora chandranana champu" on Odia Wikisource. A recent entrant into the Odia Wikimedia community, Prateek is also the youngest Odia Wikimedian.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Rohan George and Elonnai Hickok in a blog post <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/are-we-throwing-our-data-protection-regimes-under-the-bus">analyzed consent, big data and data protection</a> that examines in detail why the principle of consent is providing us increasingly less of an aegis in protecting our data.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Elonnai Hickok, Vipul Kharbanda and Vanya Rakesh on behalf of CIS submitted a <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-comments-and-recommendations-to-human-dna-profiling-bill-2015">clause-by-clause comments</a> on the Human DNA Profiling Bill that was circulated by the Department of Biotechnology on June 9, 2015.</li>
<li>Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok and Tarun Krishnakumar co-authored an article titled <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-privacy-transparency-and-technology">Security: Privacy, Transparency and Technology</a>. The article was published by Observer Research Foundation, Digital Debates 2015: CyFy Journal Volume 2.</li>
<li>Elonnai Hickok in a blog post titled <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/review-of-policy-debate-around-big-data-and-internet-of-things"> A Review of the Policy Debate around Big Data and Internet of Things </a>has done an analysis as to how regulators and experts across jurisdictions are reacting to Big Data and Internet of Things.</li>
<li>The Supreme Court of India has deemed it fit to refer the question of the very existence of a fundamental right to privacy to a Constitution Bench to finally decide the matter, and define the contours of such right if it does exist. Vipul Kharbanda analyses this in a <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/right-to-privacy-in-peril">blog entry</a>. </li>
<li>Experts and regulators across jurisdictions are examining the impact of Big Data practices on traditional data protection standards and principles. This will be a useful and pertinent exercise for India to undertake as the government and the private and public sectors begin to incorporate and rely on the use of Big Data in decision making processes and organizational operations. Elonnai Hickok has <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/big-data-and-information-technology-rules-2011">provided an initial evaluation of how Big Data could impact India's current data protection standards</a>. </li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li> Elonnai Hickok <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comparison-of-the-human-dna-profiling-bill-2012-with-cis-recommendations-sub-committee-recommendations-expert-committee-recommendations-and-the-human-dna-profiling-bill-2015">has provided a comparison of Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 vs. the Human DNA Profiling Bill 2015</a>, CIS's main recommendations vs. the 2015 Bill, Sub-Committee Recommendations vs. the 2015 Bill, and the Expert Committee Recommendations vs. the 2015 Bill. </li>
<li> CIS <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-submission-to-unga-wsis-review">submitted its comments</a> to the non-paper on the UNGA Overall Review of the Implementation of the WSIS outcomes, evaluating the progress made and challenges ahead.</li>
<li>In a policy brief, Vipul Kharbanda <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/policy-paper-on-surveillance-in-india">has analyzed the different laws regulating surveillance at the state and central level in India and calls out ways in which the provisions are unharmonized</a>. The brief then provides recommendations for the harmonization of surveillance law in India. </li>
<li>Hardnews interviewed Sunil Abraham about the future of the internet in India. The <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hardnewsmedia-august-10-2015-abeer-kapoor-net-neutrality-india-is-a-keybattle-ground">article was published in their August edition</a>.</li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li> Shyam Ponappa in an <a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-august-6-2015-shyam-ponappa-those-dropped-calls"> Op-ed published by Business Standard </a> has given an analysis on the reasons of the number of dropped calls on our mobile phones. </li></ul>
</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility and Inclusion</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing a project on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-text-to-speech-synthesizer">here</a>. The project on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India got over and the compilation has been printed.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">NVDA and eSpeak</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Monthly Updates</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/august-2015-nvda-report.pdf">August 2015 Report</a> (Suman Dogra; July 31, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Event Reports</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-espeak-marathi">Training in eSpeak Marathi</a> (Organized by NVDA team; National Association for the Blind; Nashik; June 22 - 23, 2015). <em>The workshop was held in the month of June but the report got published later in August.</em> </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-in-e-speak-hindi">Training in eSpeak Hindi</a> (Organized by NVDA team; Jeevan Jyoti School for the Blind; Varanasi; August 26 - 28, 2015). </li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Pervasive Technologies</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-mobile-device-market"><strong> </strong>Methodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Market </a> (Rohini Lakshané; November 10, 2014). <em>This blog post published last year has been recently updated</em>. </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comparative-transparency-review-of-collective-management-organisations-in-india-uk-usa"> Comparative Transparency Review of Collective Management Organisations in India, United Kingdom and the United States </a> (Maggie Huang, Arpita Sengupta and Paavni Anand; August 1, 2015). </li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Other (Copyright and Patent)</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cci-participation-at-the-upcoming-3rd-international-conference-on-ipr-and-competition" class="external-link">CCI Participation at the Upcoming 3rd International Conference on IPR and Competition</a> (Amulya Purushothama; August 5, 2015). CIS wrote to the Competition Commission of India Chairman on August 5, 2015 about participation at a conference organised by Ericsson and concerns regarding conflict of interest. We also had several other NGOs sign on to the letter. </li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-introduction">MHRD IPR Chair Series: Introduction</a> (Amulya Purushothama; August 10, 2015). Aditya Garg assisted in research and writing. </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-what-have-sectoral-innovation-councils-been-doing-on-ipr"> National IPR Policy Series: What Have the Sectoral Innovation Councils Been Doing on IPR </a> (Nehaa Chaudhari and Varun Baliga; August 13, 2015). Amulya Purushothama assisted with research and writing. </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Media Coverage</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/times-of-india-rema-nagarajan-august-6-2015-competition-commission-of-india-chairman-participation-in-assocham-conference-raises-conflict-of-interests">Competition Commission of India chariman's participation in Assocham conference raises conflict of interests</a> (Rema Nagarajan; The Times of India; August 6, 2015).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/business-standard-august-6-2015-dilasha-seth-and-deepak-patel-assocham-event-sparks-row-over-conflict-of-interest-by-cci">Assocham event sparks row over conflict of interest by CCI</a> (Dilasha Seth and Deepak Patel; Business Standard; August 6, 2015).</li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Wikipedia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As part of the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a> we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kisorachandrananachampu-on-odia-wikisource"><strong> </strong>Odia Wikisource has a new Wikisourcer, and he is the youngest in the Odia Wikimedia community! </a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; August 21, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Events Co-organized</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/events/rare-telugu-religious-and-historical-work-preserved-at-annamacharya-library-to-come-on-wikisource"><strong> </strong>Annamaya Library edit-a-thon </a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia Community; August 6, 2015; Andhra Loyola College; Vijaywada). </li>
<li> <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/International_workshop_on_digitization_and_archiving,_Jadavpur_University"> International Workshop on Digitization and Archiving </a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Wikipedia Community; August 19 - 21, 2015). Rahmanuddin Shaik was one of the trainers. </li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">FOSS</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/events/workshop-on-digital-collaborations-in-tamil-language-tamil-virtual-university-chennai">Workshop on digital collaborations in Tamil-language, Tamil Virtual Chennai</a> (Organized by Tamil Virtual University, Anna University Campus, Chennai; August 8 - 9, 2015). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja atttended this event. </li>
<li><a href="http://pn.ispirt.in/event/open-innovation-entrepreneurship-and-our-digital-future/">Open Innovation, entrepreneurship, and our digital future </a> (Organized by iSpirit; Bangalore; August 13, 2015). Rohini Lakshané attended the event. Rohini wrote a <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/we-need-to-proactively-ensure-that-people-cant-file-representatives-of-the-creativity-of-a-foss-community"> report on this </a> . </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Media Coverage</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">CIS gave its inputs to the following:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/telugu-wiki-edit-a-thon-at-alc">Telugu Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at ALC</a> (Eenadu; August 6, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/telugu-wiki-editathon-alc">Telugu Wiki Edit-a-thon in ALC</a> (Eenadu; August 6, 2015)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/2015-08-07/Rare-Telugu-religious-and-historical-work-preserved-at-Annamacharya-library-to-come-on-Wikisource-168454">Rare Telugu religious and historical work preserved at Annamacharya library to come on Wikisource! </a> (The Hans India; August 7, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/mangalorean-dotcom-august-13-2015"> ಗ್ರಾಮೀಣ ಪ್ರದೇಶದ ಆರ್ಥಿಕ ಪ್ರಗತಿಯಿಂದ ದೇಶದ ಆರ್ಥಿಕ ಪ್ರಗತಿ ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. </a> (Mangalorean.com; August 13, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/karavali-karnataka-august-14-2015"> ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯ ಮುಕ್ತವಾಗಿ ಬಳಸಿ: ಡಾ.ಪವನಜ </a> (Karavali Karnataka; August 14, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/sahil-online-august-14-2015"> ಬೆಳ್ತಂಗಡಿ:ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಕಾಲಕ್ಕೂ ಲಭ್ಯ ಇರುವ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ಹಾಗೂ ಮುಕ್ತ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾ-ಪವನಜ </a> (SahilOnline; August 14, 2015). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/the-hindu-august-23-2015-talamaddale-on-august-23">Talamaddale on August 23</a> (Hindu; August 16, 2015).</li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Privacy</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Article</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-privacy-transparency-and-technology">Security: Privacy, Transparency and Technology</a> (Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok and Tarun Krishnakumar; Observer Research Foundation, <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-privacy-transparency-technology.pdf">Digital Debates 2015: CyFy Journal Volume 2</a> ; August 19, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-comments-and-recommendations-to-human-dna-profiling-bill-2015"><strong> </strong>CIS Comments and Recommendations to the Human DNA Profiling Bill, June 2015 </a> (Elonnai Hickok, Vipul Kharbanda and Vanya Rakesh; August 27, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/policy-paper-on-surveillance-in-india">Policy Paper on Surveillance in India</a> (Vipul Kharbanda; August 3, 2015). </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comparison-of-the-human-dna-profiling-bill-2012-with-cis-recommendations-sub-committee-recommendations-expert-committee-recommendations-and-the-human-dna-profiling-bill-2015"> Comparison of the Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 with: CIS recommendations, Sub-Committee Recommendations, Expert Committee Recommendations, and the Human DNA Profiling Bill 2015 </a> (Elonnai Hickok; August 10, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/right-to-privacy-in-peril">Right to Privacy in Peril</a> (Vipul Kharbanda; August 13, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/responsible-data-forum"> Responsible Data Forum: Discussion on the Risks and Mitigations of releasing Data </a> (Vanya Rakesh; August 26, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/are-we-throwing-our-data-protection-regimes-under-the-bus"> Are we Throwing our Data Protection Regimes under the Bus? </a> (Elonnai Hickok and Rohan George; August 29, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/supreme-court-order-is-a-good-start-but-is-seeding-necessary"> Supreme Court Order is a Good Start, but is Seeding Necessary? </a> (Elonnai Hickok and Rohan George; August 29, 2015). </li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Big Data</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/big-data-and-information-technology-rules-2011"><strong> </strong>Big Data and the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules 2011 </a> (Elonnai Hickok; August 11, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/review-of-policy-debate-around-big-data-and-internet-of-things"> A Review of the Policy Debate around Big Data and Internet of Things </a> (Elonnai Hickok; August 17, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-changing-landscape-of-ict-governance-and-practice-convergence-and-big-data"><strong> </strong>The Changing Landscape of ICT Governance and Practice - Convergence and Big Data </a> (Co-organized by Innovation Center for Big Data and Digital Convergence, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan; August 24 - 25, 2015). Sharat Chandra Ram was granted the <a href="http://www.cprsouth.org/2015/02/call-for-applications-2015-young-scholar-awards/">Young Scholar Award 2015</a> to attend the<em>Young Scholar Workshop</em> followed by main <a href="http://www.cprsouth.org/"><em>CPRSouth2015 conference</em> (Communication Policy Research South) conference</a>. </li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Free Speech and Expression</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-submission-to-unga-wsis-review">CIS submission to the UNGA WSIS+10 Review</a> (Jyoti Panday; August 9, 2015), </li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Cyber Security</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Upcoming Event</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/bangalore-chapter-meet-of-dsci-september-26-2015">Bangalore Chapter Meet of DSCI</a> (Co-organized by DSCI and CIS; September 26, 2015). Melissa Hathaway, Commissioner, Global Commission for Internet Governance and Sunil Abraham will be speaking at this event. </li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Op-ed</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-august-6-2015-shyam-ponappa-those-dropped-calls">Those Dropped Calls</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; August 5, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; August 6, 2015). </li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Books</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/digital-activism-in-asia-reader">Digital Activism in Asia Reader</a> (edited by Nishant Shah, P.P. Sneha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, with support from Anirudh Sridhar, Denisse Albornoz, and Verena Getahun; August 8, 2015).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Books Chapters</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/civil-society-organisations-and-internet-governance-in-asia-open-review">Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in Asia - Open Review </a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; Asia Internet History Vol. 3, edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon). Comments are invited.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/civil-society-organisations-and-internet-governance-in-india-open-review">Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in India - Open Review </a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; Asia Internet History Vol. 3, edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon). Comments are invited.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Accepted Paper Abstract</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/studying-the-emerging-database-state-in-india-accepted-abstract"><strong> </strong>Studying the Emerging Database State in India: Notes for Critical Data Studies </a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; August 2, 2015). <em>The paper has been provisionally accepted</em>. </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_mock-calling">Mock-Calling - Ironies of Outsourcing and the Aspirations of an Individual</a> (Sreedeep; August 6, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_governing-speech-on-the-internet"> Governing Speech on the Internet: From the Free Marketplace Policy to a Controlled 'Public Sphere' </a> (Smarika Kumar; August 28, 2015). </li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/news">News & Media Coverage</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-kanika-datta-august-1-2015-why-the-dna-bill-is-open-to-misuse-sunil-abraham">Why the DNA Bill is open to misuse: Sunil Abraham</a> (Kanika Datta; Business Standard; August 1, 2015) </li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-august-2-2015-karthikeyan-hemalatha-porn-ban">Porn ban: People will soon learn to circumvent ISPs and govt orders, expert says </a> (Karthikeyan Hemalatha; The Times of India; August 2, 2015). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/idg-news-service-august-2-2015-indian-govt-orders-isps-to-block-857-porn-websites">Indian government orders ISPs to block 857 porn websites</a> (John Ribeiro; IDG News and PC World; August 2, 2015)</li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bbc-news-august-3-2015-india-blocks-access-to-857-porn-sites"> India blocks access to 857 porn sites </a> (BBC; August 3, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/financial-times-james-crabtree-august-3-2015-india-launches-crackdown-on-online-porn"> India launches crackdown on online porn </a> (James Crabtree; Financial Times; August 3, 2015). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-august-3-2015-siladitya-ray-proxies-and-vpns">Proxies and VPNs: Why govt can't ban porn websites?</a> (Siladitya Ray; August 3, 2015; Hindustan Times)</li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-august-4-2015-anahita-mukherji-nanny-state-rules-porn-bad-for-you"> Nanny state rules porn bad for you </a> (Anahita Mukherji; The Times of India; August 4, 2015). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-august-4-2015-ban-on-pornography-temporary-says-government">Ban on pornography temporary, says government</a> (Business Standard; August 4, 2015)</li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-australian-news-august-5-2015-amanda-hodge-porn-block-in-india-sparks-outrage"> Porn block in India sparks outrage </a> (Australian; August 5, 2015). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-wall-street-journal-august-5-2015-sean-mclain-indian-porn-ban-is-partially-lifted-but-sites-remain-blocked">Indian Porn Ban is Partially Lifted But Sites Remain Blocked</a> (Sean Mclain; Wall Street Journal; August 5, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/open-magazine-august-7-2015-ullekh-np-genetic-profiling">Genetic Profiling: Is it all in the DNA?</a> (Ullekh N.P.; The Open Magazine; August 7, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/desi-blitz-august-7-2015-nazhat-khan-india-partially-lifts-porn-ban">India partially lifts Porn Ban?</a> (Nazhat Khan; DESI blitz; August 7, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hardnewsmedia-august-10-2015-abeer-kapoor-net-neutrality-india-is-a-keybattle-ground">Net Neutrality: India is a Key Battleground</a> (Abeer Kapoor; Hardnews; August 10, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-august-20-2015-aloke-tikku-stats-from-2014-reveal-horror-of-scrapped-section-66-a-of-it-act">Stats from 2014 reveal horror of scrapped section 66A of IT Act</a> (Aloke Tikku; Hindustan Times; August 20, 2015).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-times-of-india-sandhya-soman-august-23-2015-the-seedy-underbelly-of-revenge-porn">The seedy underbelly of revenge porn</a> (Sandhya Soman; The Times of India; August 23, 2015).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-businessline-august-28-p-anima-the-new-tattler-in-town">The new tattler in town</a> (P. Anima; Hindu Businessline; August 28, 2015).</li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the mediation and reconfiguration of social and cultural processes and structures by the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>CIS - Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
<li>Access to Knowledge - Twitter:<a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K"> https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Access to Knowledge - Facebook:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>Access to Knowledge - E-Mail: <a href="mailto:a2k@cis-india.org">a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>Researchers at Work - E-Mail: <a href="mailto:raw@cis-india.org">raw@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>Researchers at Work - Mailing List: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a></li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><br />► Support Us</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">► Request for Collaboration:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:sumandro@cis-india.org">sumandro@cis-india.org</a> (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:tanveer@cis-india.org">tanveer@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects. </em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2015-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2015-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchers at Work2015-10-27T00:25:02ZPageAugust 2013 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2013-bulletin
<b>Our newsletter for the month of August 2013 can be accessed below. </b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the eighth issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we are glad to bring you the final report on <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/banking-and-accessibility-in-india-report">banking and accessibility</a> submitted to the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, a <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/bilateral-inhibiting-treaty-investigating-challenges-that-bilateral-investment-treaties-pose-to-compulsory-licensing-of-pervasive-technology-patent-pools">research paper</a> on India’s obligations under bilateral investment treaties, a <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/konkani-wikipedia-advances-in-four-days">report from a Wikipedia workshop</a> held at the Konkani Department in Goa University, a <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/report-on-the-sixth-privacy-roundtable-meeting-new-delhi">report on the sixth privacy roundtable</a> held in New Delhi, recent <a href="https://cis-india.org/news">news coverage</a>, and updates on our upcoming events.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Archives of our newsletters are <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/">here</a>. Our policies on Ethical Research Guidelines, Non-Discrimination and Equal Opportunities, Privacy, Terms of Website Use and Travel can be<a href="https://cis-india.org/about/policies"> accessed here</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Jobs</b><br /> CIS is inviting applications for the posts of <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-developer">Developer</a> (NVDA Screen Reader Project). To apply for this post, send in your resume to Nirmita Narasimhan (<a href="mailto:nirmita@cis-india.org">nirmita@cis-india.org</a>). CIS is also seeking applications for the post of <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/policy-associate-internet-governance">Policy Associate</a> (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to Sunil Abraham (<a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>) and Pranesh Prakash (<a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>).</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility" class="external-link">Accessibility</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its project on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India with the Hans Foundation, we bring you three new draft chapters on Assam, Manipur and Puducherry. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 21 states and 3 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the below chapters:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-kit-assam-chapter-call-for-comments">The Assam Chapter</a> (by CLPR, August 28, 2013)</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-kit-manipur-chapter-call-for-comments">The Manipur Chapter</a> (by CLPR, August 29, 2013)</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/ational-resource-kit-puducherry-chapter-call-for-comments">The Puducherry Chapter</a> (by Anandhi Viswanathan, August 31, 2013)</li>
</ul>
<p>Note: <i>All the chapters published on the website are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated</i>.</p>
<p><b>Reports</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/banking-and-accessibility-in-india-report">Banking and Accessibility in India: A Report by CIS</a> (by Vrinda Maheshwari, August 12, 2013). This is the final report submitted to the Ministry of Finance, Government of India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/opening-new-avenues-for-empowerment">Opening New Avenues for Empowerment</a> (by UNESCO, August 31, 2013). UNESCO has published a global report on higher education titled “Opening New Avenues for Empowerment”. Nirmita Narasimhan was the coordinating author for the Asia Pacific region.</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness">Openness</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project on developing the growth of Indic language communities</a> with Wikimedia Foundation, <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Programme_Plan">CIS-A2K</a> held six Wikipedia workshops. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. CIS also promotes openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software through its Openness programme.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k"><b>Access to Knowledge</b></a><b><br />Research Paper</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/bilateral-inhibiting-treaty-investigating-challenges-that-bilateral-investment-treaties-pose-to-compulsory-licensing-of-pervasive-technology-patent-pools">India's Obligations under Bilateral Investment Treaties (Part A): “Bilateral Inhibiting Treaty?” — Investigating the Challenges that Bilateral Investment Treaties pose to the Compulsory Licensing of Pervasive Technology Patent Pools</a> (by Gavin Pereira, August 31, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Column</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/yojana-august-2013-pranesh-prakash-copyrights-and-copywrongs-why-the-govt-should-embrace-the-public-domain">Copyrights and Copywrongs Why the Government Should Embrace the Public Domain</a> (by Pranesh Prakash, Yojana, Issue: August 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-august-26-2013-ch-unnikrishnan-dictionary-words-in-software-patent-guidelines-puzzle-industry">Dictionary words in software patent guidelines puzzle industry</a> (by C.H. Unnikrishnan, Livemint, August 26, 2013). CIS work on Access to Knowledge is mentioned.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/are-indian-consumers-laws-ready-for-digital-age">Are Indian Consumer Laws Ready for the Digital Age?</a> (by Vipul Kharbanda, August 8, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/do-you-have-right-to-unlock-your-smart-phone">Do You Have the Right to Unlock Your Smart Phone?</a> (by Puneeth Nagaraj, August 7, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia)</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_To_Knowledge/Team" title="Access To Knowledge/Team">A2K team</a> consists of four members based in Bangalore: <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">T. Vishnu Vardhan</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Dr. U.B. Pavanaja</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Subhashish Panigrahi</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Syed Muzammiluddin</a>, and one team member <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Nitika Tandon</a> who works from Delhi.</p>
<p><b>Event Reports</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/a-kannada-wikipedia-workshop-at-krishnarajapet">A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Krishnarajapet</a> (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, August 14, 2013). The workshop was co-organized by the CIS-A2K team along with Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/odia-wikipedia-workshop-sambalpur">An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at Sambalpur</a> (by Gorvachove Pothal, August 27, 2013). This workshop was held at Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla, Sambalpur on July 26 and 27, 2013. Odia Wikipedian Gorvachove Pothal organized this workshop with financial support from the CIS-A2K programme.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/konkani-wikipedia-climbing-up-the-indian-language-ladder">Konkani Wikipedia — Climbing up the Indian Language Ladder?</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 31, 2013). CIS-A2K team organized this event at the Konkani Department, Goa University from August 21 to 24, 2013.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/konkani-wikipedia-advances-in-four-days">Konkani Wikipedia Advances in 4 Days — From 90 Articles to 130 Articles!</a> (by Nitika Tandon, August 31, 2013). CIS-A2K team organized this event at the Konkani Department, Goa University from August 21 to 24, 2013. Thirty-eight students took part in the wiki editing workshop.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Co-organised</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/digitization-of-books-for-indic-language-wikisource">Digitization of Books for Indic Language WikiSource</a> (organised by Wikimedia India and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, August 18, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/workshop-on-editing-wikipedia-in-mumbai">A Workshop on Editing Wikipedia in Mumbai</a> (organised by the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education and CIS-A2K, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, August 24, 2013). The workshop was aimed at assisting students to take part in the Indian Languages Mela at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (September 20-21, 2013) which is hosting a competition for best Indian language entries on Wikipedia.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Hosted</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/mobile-training-workshop">Mobile Training Workshop @ CIS</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 29, 2013). Rachita and Keerthana Chandrashekar gave a talk on mobile campaigns.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Participated</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_page">Wikimania 2013: The International Wikimedia Conference</a> (organised by Wikimedia Foundation, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, August 7 – 11, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-asia-meeting">Wikimedia Asia Meeting</a> (organised by Wikimedia community, Hong Kong, August 10, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the meeting. <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikimedia-asia-meeting.txt">Unedited transcript</a> of the entire conversation is posted online.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/telugu-wiki-meet-up-hyderabad-august-2013">వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం/హైదరాబాద్/ఆగష్టు</a> (Hyderabad, August 25, 2013). T.Vishnu Vardhan participated for the meeting through Skype.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/beforeitnews-august-1-2013-wikipedia-gains-massive-traffic-thanks-to-vernacular-languages">Wikipedia Gains Massive Traffic Thanks To Vernacular Languages</a> (Before It’s News, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-august-1-2013-sandhya-soman-wikipedia-boom-in-marathi-malayalam-other-desi-languages">Wikipedia boom in Marathi, Malayalam and other desi languages</a> (by Sandhya Soman, The Times of India, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/dna-august-1-2013-divya-saboo-wikipedia-boom-in-vernacular-languages">Wikipedia boom in vernacular languages</a> (by Divya Saboo, August 1, 2013). The Centre for Internet and Society is mentioned.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/hindu-r-krishna-kumar-august-2-2013-stress-on-posting-articles-on-kannada-wikipedia">Stress on posting articles on Kannada Wikipedia</a> (by R. Krishna Kumar, Hindu, August 2, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/techcrunch-august-6-2013-mahesh-sharma-indias-indigenous-languages-drive-wikipedias-growth">India’s Indigenous Languages Drive Wikipedia’s Growth</a> (by Mahesh Sharma, TechCrunch, August 6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/prajavani-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-workshop">Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage</a> (Prajavani, August 12, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/vijaya-vani-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-wikipedia-workshop">Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage</a> (Vijaya Vani, August 12, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/suvarna-times-of-karnataka-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-workshop">Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage</a> (Suvarna Times of Karnataka, August 12, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/thegoan-joyce-dias-august-24-2013-wikipedia-writes-a-new-script">Wikipedia writes a new script</a> (by Joyce Dias, August 24, 2013, The Goan). CIS-A2K workshop held in Goa is mentioned extensively. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi are quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/epaperoheraldo-august-24-2013-diana-fernandes-konkani-wikipedia-makes-headway-">Konkani Wikipedia makes headway</a> (by Diana Fernandes, OHeraldO, August 24, 2013). Nitika Tandon is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.goanvoice.org.uk/?ref=Guzels.TV">Konkani Wikipedians Speak</a> (Goan Voice Daily Newsletter, September 4, 2013). Konkani Wikipedia workshop organized in Goa from August 21 – 24, 2013 is mentioned in this newsletter.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Ongoing / Upcoming Events<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-training-in-telugu-for-b-r-ambedkar-open-university">Wikipedia Training in Telugu for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad</a> (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, September 5-6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is teaching a module on "Knowledge and Openness in the Digital Era".</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/you-too-can-write-on-wikipedia">You too can write on Wikipedia</a>! — Orientation Workshop (co-organised by CIS-A2K and the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, September 15, 2013). </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/train-the-trainer">Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore</a> (organised by CIS-A2K, Bangalore, October 1 – 5, 2013). <i>The programme will be held in the first week of October</i>.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/voices-from-goa">Voices from Goa: Frania Pereira tells Why She Writes Articles on Konkani Wikipedia</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013). </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/voices-from-goa-wikipedia-editor-rusita-paryekar">Voices from Goa: Wikipedia Editor Rusita Paryekar</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Openness</h3>
<p><b>Event Hosted </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/open-hardware-lab">Open Hardware Lab: Play & Invent + Bonus Film Screening</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 4, 2013). A hangout was done with CIS Lab Community and with members of the Computer Club of India and Arduino enthusiasts.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Participated</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/e-dirap-google-hangout-on-open-government">e-DIRAP Google+ Hangout on Open Government</a> (organised by Google, July 25, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/tech-president-august-6-2013-david-eaves-beyond-property-rights-thinking-about-moral-definitions-openness">Beyond Property Rights: Thinking About Moral Definitions of Openness</a> (by David Eaves, Tech President, August 6, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/techdirt-august-14-2013-glyn-moody-extending-spectrum-openness-to-include-moral-right-to-share">Extending The Spectrum Of Openness To Include The Moral Right To Share</a> (by Glyn Moody, Techdirt, August 19, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS began two projects earlier this year. The first one on facilitating research and events on surveillance and freedom of expression is with Privacy International and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada. The second one on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia is with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada:</p>
<h3>SAFEGUARDS Project</h3>
<p><b>Event Report</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/report-on-the-sixth-privacy-roundtable-meeting-new-delhi">Sixth Privacy Roundtable</a> (co-organised by CIS, FICCI and DSCI, New Delhi, August 24, 2013). Bhairav Acharya and Prachi Arya participated in this event. The discussions and recommendations from the six round table meetings will be presented at the Internet Governance meeting in October 2013.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Newspaper / Magazine Columns</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/forbesindia-article-august-21-2013-sunil-abraham-freedom-from-monitoring">Freedom from Monitoring: India Inc Should Push For Privacy Laws</a> (by Sunil Abraham, Forbes India Magazine, August 21, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-august-25-2013-nishant-shah-out-of-the-bedroom">Out of the Bedroom</a> (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, August 25, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/saket-modi-calls-for-stronger-cyber-security-discussions">'Ethical Hacker' Saket Modi Calls for Stronger Cyber Security Discussions</a> (by Kovey Coles, August 5, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ethical-issues-in-open-data">Ethical Issues in Open Data</a> (by Kovey Coles, August 7, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/fin-fisher-in-india-and-myth-of-harmless-metadata">FinFisher in India and the Myth of Harmless Metadata</a> (by Maria Xynou, August 13, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Organised</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/the-hackers-way-of-reshaping-policies">The Hackers Way of Reshaping Policies</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 2, 2013). Bernadette Langle gave a talk on different ways to reshape policies.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/cryptoparty-chennai">Chennai: Learn to Protect your Online Activities!</a> (Asian College of Journalism, Taramani, Chennai, August 7, 2013). A Crypto Party was organised.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/the-phishing-society-a-talk-by-maria-xynou">The Phishing Society: Why 'Facebook' is more dangerous than the Government Spying on You - A Talk by Maria Xynou</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 7, 2013). Maria Xynou gave a talk on phishing society.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/cryptoparty-chennai">Learn to Protect your Online Activities!</a> (ACJ - Asian College of Journalism, Second Main Road (Behind M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation), Taramani, Chennai, August 7, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/privacy-meeting-brussels-bangalore">Privacy Meeting: Brussels – Bangalore</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 14, 2013). Gertjan Boulet and Dariusz Kloza gave a talk on privacy.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/cryptoparty-bangalore">Learn to Protect your Online Activities!</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 17, 2013). A Crypto Party was held at CIS.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Participated In</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/repeat-remix-remediate-summer-school-2013">Summer School 2013</a> (organized by the Research Center of Media and Communication at the University of Hamburg, Germany, July 29 – August 2, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah was a panelist in the session on "Guilty until Proven Innocent: Pirates, Pornographers, Terrorists and the IT Act in India".</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/meeting-of-sub-committee-on-dna-profiling-bill">Meeting of a Sub-committee on DNA Profiling Bill</a> (Hyderabad, August 6, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting for discussing the draft bill.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/foundation-for-media-professionals-august-17-2013-surveillance-privacy-v-security">Surveillance: Privacy Vs Security</a> (organized by the Foundation for Media Professionals, India International Centre, New Delhi, August 17, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/caravan-magazine-august-1-2013-rahul-m-crypto-night">Crypto Night</a> (by Rahul M., Caravan, August 1, 2013). Pranesh Prakash and Bernadette Langle are quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-aug-1-2013-kim-arora-facebook-limiting-access-to-social-media-can-restrict-freedom-of-speech">Facebook: Limiting access to social media can restrict freedom of speech</a> (by Kim Arora, The Times of India, August 1, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-august-4-2013-deepa-kurup-token-disclosures">Token disclosures?</a> (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, August 4, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-august-4-2013-padmaparna-ghosh-memea-s-the-word-now">Meme’s the word now</a> (by Padmaparna Ghosh, The Times of India, August 4, 2013). Nishant Shah is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-august-9-2013-moulishree-srivastava-anirban-sen-chinese-hackers-baiting-indian-govt-corporate-employees">Chinese hackers baiting Indian govt, corporate employees: report</a> (by Moulishree Srivastava and Anirban Sen, Livemint, August 9, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ndtv-the-social-network-mixed-signals-supreme-court-notices-to-states-on-facebook-arrests">Mixed signals? Supreme Court notices to states on Facebook arrests</a> (NDTV, August 16, 2013). Pranesh Prakash, Shreya Singhal and Faizal Farooqui discussed the grey areas of the IT Act.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-august-19-2013-prashant-jha-balancing-vigilance-and-privacy">Balancing vigilance and privacy</a> (by Prashant Jha, The Hindu, August 18, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/forbesindia-august-13-2013-rohin-dharmakumar-how-nextgen-smartphone-users-are-being-bought-and-sold">How Next-Gen Smartphone Users are Being Bought and Sold</a> (by Rohin Dharmakumar, <a href="http://forbesindia.com/article/checkin/how-nextgen-smartphone-users-are-being-bought-and-sold/35859/1">Forbes India Magazine</a>, August 13, 2013, and <a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/how-nextgen-smartphone-users-are-being-bought-and-sold/415719-11.html">IBN Live</a>, August 19, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/forbesindia-august-22-2013-rohin-dharmakumar-dear-milind-deora-prakash-javadekar-deserved-the-truth">Dear Milind Deora, Prakash Javadekar Deserved The Truth</a> (by Rohin Dharmakumar, Forbes India, August 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-august-26-2013-venkatesh-upadhyay-election-campaign">Election campaign: parties draw battle lines on media platforms</a> (by Venkatesh Upadhyay, Livemint, August 26, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/forbesindia-august-26-2013-india-internet-privacy-woes">India's Internet Privacy Woes</a> (by Rohin Dharmakumar, Forbes India Magazine, August 26, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-august-30-2013-cyberspying-govt-may-ban-gmail-for-official-communication">Cyberspying: Government may ban Gmail for official communication</a> (The Times of India, August 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-register-neil-mc-allister-august-30-2013-indian-govt-to-bar-politicians-from-using-gmail-for-official-business">Indian government to bar politicians from using Gmail for official business</a> (by Neil McAllister, The Register, August 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Cyber Stewards Project</b><br />Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project.</p>
<p><b>Video Interview</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li>Part 9: <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-cybersecurity-series-part-9-saikat-datta">Interview with Saikat Datta</a> (August 5, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/telecom">Telecom</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS has published one newspaper column in the Business Standard and also made a submission to TRAI:</p>
<p><b>Newspaper Column</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-shyam-ponappa-august-1-2013-domestic-high-tech-manufacturing-needs-access-to-markets">Breaking into the Closed Circle: Domestic High-Tech Manufacturing Needs Access To Markets</a> (by Shyam Ponappa, originally published in the Business Standard, July 31, 2013 and also mirrored in Organizing India Blogspot, August 1, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Submission</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/trai-consultation-paper-on-spectrum">TRAI Consultation Paper on Spectrum</a> (by Shyam Ponappa and A.B. Beliappa, August 31, 2013). The submission was made to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on August 21, 2013.</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities">Digital Humanities</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia.</p>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/digital-humanities-talk-at-cis">Digital Humanities Talk</a> (by Sara Morais, August 1, 2013). Sara wrote about her talk in this blog entry.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/theorizing-the-digital-subaltern">Theorizing the Digital Subaltern</a> (by Sara Morais, August 2, 2013). </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Organised</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/digital-humanities-for-indian-higher-education">Digital Humanities for Indian Higher Education</a> (co-organised by CIS-A2K, HEIRA, CSCS, Tumkur University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and CCS-Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, July 13, 2013). <i>Errata</i>: <i>We had got the name of one of the co-organisers wrong in our previous newsletter. We have corrected this now.</i> </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Participated In</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/south-asia-conference-on-higher-education">South Asia Conference on Higher Education</a> (organised by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, Ford Foundation Office, New Delhi, August 5 – 7, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated in this conference.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.<br /><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cis_india">Twitter</a></li>
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<li>Visit us at <a href="https://cis-india.org/">http://cis-india.org</a></li>
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No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceDigital HumanitiesOpennessResearchers at Work2013-09-13T06:26:30ZPageAttentional Capital in Online Gaming : The Currency of Survival
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/gaming-and-gold/attentional-capital-online-gaming
<b>This blog post by Arun Menon discusses the concepts of production, labour and race in virtual worlds and their influence on the production of attention as a currency. An attempt is made to locate attentional capital, attentional repositories and attention currencies within gaming to examine 'attention currencies and its trade and transactions in virtual worlds. A minimal collection of attention currencies are placed as central and as a pre-requisite for survival in MMOs in much the same way that real currency become a necessity for survival. The approach is to locate attentional capital through different perspectives as well as examine a few concepts around virtual worlds.</b>
<p>Virtual Worlds<strong>1</strong> have been examined extensively for their capacities in creating simulated spaces for fun, play, and entertainment. Presently there is a trend in research studies worldwide to focus on examining questions of informational labour, production, ownership, racism, and the currencies of trade. By drawing examples from the published works of some of the leading writers in this field , I explore these questions and their connections with attention currency and the attention economy<strong>2</strong> in gaming. I posit attention currency as a third currency in addition to virtual and real currencies in the ability in which it operates as a currency. Through the concepts put forth, an attempt is made for a reading of attentional capital, attention currencies, attention repositories, trades in attention, and the functions of attention as a currency in gaming economies besides a reading of confluences in terminologies and application and to expand them to examine attention economies in gaming. The games examined for this purpose are wide ranging, such as Eternal Duel, Rising Era from the Fantasy RPG Genre, Travian, T.K.O from the RTS genre, and select and limited readings of and around WoW. All of these fall under the MMO genre.<strong>3</strong></p>
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>Edward Castronova is a professor at Indiana University and has prolifically written on virtual economies. His most prominent works are 'Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games' and 'Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun is Changing Reality' and has done extensive research and commentaries on the economies of virtual worlds and online games. His concept the 'Avatarial Capital' (Castronova 2005) is articulated in a similar manner as Human Capital<strong>4 </strong>, and Cultural Capital.<strong>5</strong> Castronova's Avatarial capital is approached as a set of non-material factors such as in-game knowledge, experience, growth, skills and other character related functions. Along the same lines as human capital and cultural capital, increases in the investments in Avatar Capital proportionally increases the power of the entity (p. 41 Castronova 2005 also refer p. 110-114).</p>
<p>What would be ideally termed, in a broader fashion, as 'attentional capital' is articulated by Castronova as Avatar Capital in a minimalist manner, such that it can be argued that avatar capital forms an essential and basic part of attentional capital in gaming. Some concepts that are accepted as exemptions (real world problems – race, class, and gender – devoid in Synthetic Worlds) are addressed by Nakamura when she engages with questions of human capital and cultural capital in fantasy warfare games such as World of Warcraft (WoW). By examining concepts of production and segregation of production processes as well as organic systems of production and designed systems of production, an attempt is made to read racialisation of informational labour within virtual worlds in light of designed races, rather than real races and posit that other forms of racism and racial warfare exist. This in contrast to Nakamura's examination dealing with racial stereotyping of informational labour, particularly of the fourth world labour, an attempt is made to posit that racial and/or class warfare (not similar in the manner that Nakamura addresses racial warfare) is present and inevitable in any designed world that has characteristics of Role Play. I posit that such forms of racial warfare need not necessarily be examined as a proxy warfare among leisure gamers and worker gamers but as inherent in any fantasy construct that places racial choices as essential to imagining certain types of roles within the game.</p>
<p>Lisa Nakamura is a professor in the Institute of Communications Research and Director of the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.aasp.illinois.edu/people/lnakamur">Asian American Studies program</a> at the University
of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her work revolves around questioning race, ethnicity, and identity in Virtual Worlds. Robbie Cooper who has written expansively on Avatar Identities and their relation with the real identities of gamers (and thus relevant to locating any shifts in attention trades) has been approached through secondary readings, reviews and a partial (limited preview) reading of the text, due to the availability or lack thereof of the text in question. By addressing avatar identities and their links to real world identities, connections can be made in the way attentional capital and attention currency interacts with, and between, virtual, and real world currencies. Although questions of the Virtual - Real Binary6 arise through multiple tangents, it is only examined as a part of discussing the Earth - Synthetic binary that Castronova uses. An attempt is made to clarify some of the terms which are common to this field and place them in perspective. The terms, their limitations and some binaries are juxtaposed for discussion. This is not to imply that Castronova cannot be used to read virtual worlds (or rather their economies), on the contrary his narrative becomes more central as his predictions on exponential growth and impact<strong>7</strong> of virtual worlds (economies) are realized.<strong>8</strong></p>
<p>By using these authors and their concepts, I posit that Attention can be read as a currency of transaction that enables the survival of the player in virtual gaming worlds and at most stages forms a pre-requisite often similar to real world currencies – a basic amount of which ensures human survival. Drawn from the concepts of Goldhaber who posits that attention is an essential pre-requisite to human survival, I extend his reading to virtual worlds to locate the transactions in attention and attentional capital and how they influence the flows of attention as a currency – making a collection of attention currency essential to survival in a virtual world.</p>
<p>In the following segments some of the terminologies, their dichotomies, and a commentary is made on the terms common to this area. The specific usage by these writers and the commentary is speculative, interpretative, and by no means a closed debate. I explore the terms and attempt to make connections with the attention economy in gaming and in the process explore the possibilities of expanding or broadening some of the terms.</p>
<h2>Synthetic Worlds</h2>
<p>Castronova (2005) describes Synthetic Worlds as[C]rafted places inside computers that are designed to accommodate large numbers of people. He goes on to describe Synthetic Worlds as the playgrounds of imagination being host to ordinary human activity. The only notable difference between simulated worlds in offline settings and online settings is that the latter can accommodate a large number of people. This definition basically stands for almost all online games, be they client-server, browser-based, persistent worlds,<strong>9</strong> text based (also MUDs<strong>10</strong>),and many more where multiple users can engage with each other in an online setting, but by focusing on MMORPGs and visual superiority. Castronova in this process isolates multiple genres of games that are capable of social, political, and economic activity similar to that of graphically constructed worlds.</p>
<p>On developing his thesis Castronova seems to suggest an undue emphasis on worlds that are graphically represented and superior (visually well defined and designed), and such games/worlds being viable synthetic worlds. Viability can be interpreted as the immersion of the player in the game as one factor. On the other hand the economic viability of the synthethic world could be another factor, economic in that there are active gold farming (termed secondary) markets in that game. In such a case synthetic worlds as a term is applicable to even non-graphical text based constructs that run online. Julian Dibbell's documentation of the LambdaMoo community reiterates a certain complexity in the textual construction of the synthetic world, even though it is not visually or graphically represented.</p>
<p>On a similar note, virtual economic activity is not restricted to graphical worlds either.<strong>11</strong> The economic activities and organizations that Castronova ascribes to these synthetic worlds are present in almost every virtual world (graphically or textually defined), where there is an aggregation of human activity and congregation of human avatars.<strong>12</strong></p>
<p>The possibilities of human economic activity both within the virtual world and the real world can be connected through an examination of gold farming. Depending on attentional capital (and the attentional repository of the entire virtual world) economic activity connects to real world trade as well. Here the popularity of the game and the ability of the secondary market to generate profits is paramount. Synthetic Worlds or in an expansive definition Virtual Worlds and the attentional capital and repositories of attention are examined that support basic forms of communication, social interaction and game play. </p>
<p>In 'what is a synthetic world' an essay in Space, Time, and Play, Castronova, et al uses the term 'Synthetic Worlds' interchangeably with virtual worlds, the difference being a focus on the 'interconnections' between the two worlds. A reading of Castronova (2005), would suggest that his usage limited what synthetic (or virtual) worlds are capable and constitute of. By using Synthetic Worlds and Virtual Worlds interchangeably throughout this article, I intend to broaden Synthetic Worlds beyond Castronova's imposed limitations.<strong>13</strong></p>
<p>When Castronova says that all synthetic worlds are MMORPGs, he has arguably limited the usage to only games that have an RPG element – furthermore, those with graphical clarity and representation. If say the Virtual World in question such as Eternal Duel were to be examined, it would not fall under what Castronova describes as a synthetic world largely because of its focus on a text based construction of Etheria. Interestingly, Etheria is not identified as a 'diasporic' homeland as much as the cities, the clans, or the game itself. In Eternal Duel, players tended towards their clans identity or the city they were based close to rather than 'Etheria' the Land itself. Unlike SL, WoW, and others where there is an identification towards the whole game 'land' such as a citizen of Lindenberg or Azeroth. Agreed that graphical constructions use visual aids to better connect with an imagined homeland, whereas the same immersive effect is restricted through text. Text based games such as these depend on the interpretative and subjective interpretations of the gamer to create, in the imagination, an idea of the homeland.</p>
<p>Even though Castronova (2005) states that virtual worlds as a conceptual term is closed and synthetic worlds are more open and interconnected (such that its not possible to read them as sealed and separate disconnected systems), it is possible that synthetic worlds are in fact limited in that they are applicable to certain graphically functional and visual worlds (MMORPGs according to Castronova) by express definition.</p>
<p>Perhaps it is relevant to look at MMORPGs as one among many other genres of online games, where there is a collection of avatars and a common synthetic world is constructed. Mizuko Ito in her documentation and usage of the 5thD project notes that the gamer and paired guide were able to construct 'micro-worlds' through narrative experiences of the real world in Simcity 2000, a city building simulation game. This construction of the micro-world was facilitated through a transfer of narrative experiences from the guide to the young gamer, through what is percieved as logical in the real world without actual knowledge of the scripts and algorithms behind the game that dictated its response. Reading micro-worlds as synthetic worlds has its own pitfalls and problems but such a reading is possible particularly when using the alone together phenomenon. Though an 'out of context' reading might be appropriate in an offline setting as well, where games have a sustainable<strong>14</strong> capacity for immersion, the only failure, if any, would be evolution which is a predominant characteristic of virtual worlds in a massive setting.</p>
<p>Whereas RPG games in an offline setting do not have any types of evolution that is sustainable, this feature is resultant of the 'massive' effect in online games, such that narratives of the game are constantly rewritten and brief, even short periods of disconnections leads to a narrative disjunct in the player, which may surface as a diasporic experience. Diasporic experiences here are similar to real world diasporic displacements in that there is a severance from the imagined 'homeland' of the avatar. A severance results in the displacement of the avatar. Evolution of the world is a prominent feature in any persistent or even a temporary time-bound world, where there is an aggregation of human interest. Constant human activity, economic, social, and political create narrative disjuncts in the timeline for those players who are removed from that particular community. MMORPGs have strong evolutionary elements drawn from and often ascribed to the massive element<strong>15</strong> such that any form of change within virtual synthetic worlds are resultant of the activities of thousands of people participating in that world including their organization, collective achievements in the achievement hierarchies and engagement in their virtual worlds.</p>
<p>There are often diasporic experiences faced by players on withdrawal from a community of gamers. The Uru Diaspora was one such – the diasporic effects were documented by Celia Pearce in Communities of Play. An extensive reading of identities, associations and severance of the homeland has been documented – examining concepts like the virtual homeland and association with the homeland such that there is a sense of rights and citizenship that arise out of this 'belonging', to eventually lead to a 'resurrection'. I would interpret diasporic experiences such as these as indicative of the immersive nature of the narrative architecture in an online game. Although the concept of the narrative architecture as one is largely applied to offline games, a confluence of human activity produces its own narrative, such that importing 'narrative architecture' to read into online spaces becomes possible.</p>
<p>Castronova's suggestion that there are possibilities of a thriving parallel economy in and through secondary markets<strong>16 </strong>makes it possible to locate avatar capital and by extension attentional capital more accurately. That is by terming avatar capital as a part of attentional capital, the outworld<strong>17</strong> relevance of avatar capital and the possibility of attention flows functioning as a currency within virtual worlds and between the real world is made.<strong>18</strong> It is possible to argue that Castronova implies certain attentional repositories when he posits that exploration, expansion, and advancement (p.110 Castronova 2005) are necessities to build up the player level, experience, and other intangible capital, which develops as the Avatar[ial] Capital, much in the same manner as Human Capital, Cultural Capital, and Gaming Capital (Pierre Bordieu's term 'Cultural Capital' is influential to both Castronova's 'Avatar[ial] Capital' and later Consalvo's 'Gaming Capital'). In the following sections, an attempt is made at approaching attention currency and its operations and positing attention as the currency of survival rather than the investments of either virtual or real world currencies.</p>
<h2>Avatarial Capital, Attentional Capital, and the Repositories of Attention</h2>
<p>Whereas Castronova places avatar skills and experience<strong>20</strong> as 'avatar capital'
alone is limiting, in that the focus is on one avatar rather than a
set of avatars. This limit also manifests in the set of resources
that the avatar has access to, particularly attention, which changes
the accesses to resources in-world and out-world and effects the
production of attention currency in its turn. Thus, it is almost
cyclical in that attentional capital in repositories ensure survival,
survival leads to greater activity and production in virtual worlds,
which in turn gives greater accesses to in-world resources and
avatarial capital and which then through the hierarchies of
achievement produces more attentional capital.</p>
<p>Even though Castronova articulates the avatarial capital as a necessity (along with physical capital) for survival, he leaves out the relevance of ranking systems (that Hamari and Lehdonvirta (2010) posit as the achievement hierarchy) that seemingly organize a massive amount of data into statistically and graphically available information in almost every virtual world and through this activity build channels of attention. Attention then flows in often unpredictable manners<strong>21</strong> and ensures the survival of the player or avatar character in that game. Every game has a system that organizes seemingly irrelevant information on avatars to provide a daily statistical representation on growth, (re-)investment, level, experience, amount of virtual gold, player vs player and non-player character 'kills' . In some hierarchies attemtpted attacks and successful kills are also recorded and made public with a ratio in percentage, the time aristocracy that lehdonvirta 2005, 2007 addresses can be located by this percentage represented in the achievement hierarchy, and so forth in a ranked hierarchy . Depending on the design and architecture of the game world (Synthetic Worlds), there may be detailed statistical data that provides for in-game information and players that are active, joined recently, completed a certain quest, requests assistance with another quest, etc., are news items that are filtered into general gameverse ranking, clan, community, alliance or group ranking.<strong>22</strong> Central to the attentional capital and its flows are these gameverse<strong>23</strong> ranking systems both internal to the game and external tools that pull data from the server to plot out potential targets for attacks, raids, and so forth.<strong>24</strong> Metagaming, or influences on the game from outside the game and its rules, affects every scenario of gaming in some manner. Metagaming most often than not, dictates the attention of individuals and their investments in time and labour.</p>
<p>For instance – Travian which is a popular MMORTS<strong>25</strong> has an array of scripts, tools, paid services, external data aggregators – i.e., external to the game - that assist in finding other players/alliances and groups for warfare. Although the game itself has sufficiently developed communication and social interaction systems<strong>26</strong>, players ranking 1-1500<strong>27</strong> most often use a variety
of external tools and IM programs to support their gameplay.<strong>28</strong> Skype or MSN<strong>29</strong> becomes preferred means of communication, coordination, and policy<strong>30</strong> discussion – and this is not limited to one game server (Travian) whose example I am citing. The number ranges that have been chosen select players whose achievements ranking is comparatively in the top 10 – 20 per cent in terms of activity, presence, and by extension, economic activity, in an international server this number would be a maximum of 1500-2000 whereas on regional servers which witness lower members the number ranges of active gamers with a reasonable growth rate are fixed at around 500-1000. These players have sufficient amount of attentional capital invested in their game to join larger groups based on common cultural symbols and perceived commonalities, which may amount to social commonalities.</p>
<p>Attentional Capital, though it draws from avatarial capital, is broader than just in-game related ranking.<strong>31 </strong>Attentional capital (and attentional repositories, which makes attention the basic currency of survival) would ideally encompass a larger sphere including real life associations as well as virtual world associations and experiences<strong>32</strong> Avatarial capital limits itself to the collection of intangible non-material capital within gaming worlds alone, there is very little discussion (by Castronova or Nakamura who uses avatarial capital) on the extent to which avatarial capital can be streched. If the term is indeed limited to single virtual worlds, a concept of consolidation of avatars (naturally avatarial capital), which occurs at multiple points should also be articulated in light of attentional repositories which allow for the aggregation of attention to reach the threshold required for survival (and thus trade, activity, and so forth). This is not constant but almost always in flux, a lack of investment for a short period would mean death gradual or instant, and depends entirely on the disposition and design of the game in question.</p>
<p>Advancement and progression of an avatar is addressed by Castronova (2005) as the accumulation of the various forms of avatar capital within a virtual world enabling the 'avatar' greater access to the virtual world and the systems of production within the virtual world, defined or rather limited by a requirement for progression. If the avatar grows, more accesses to the game's systems become available, stagnation on the other hand limits these accesses. In a collective sense the growth of a lot of avatars (in an MMORPG) collectively denotes the growth of a synthetic world. Thus, essential to the aggregation of Avatarial Capital as well as attentional capital is the evolution of a synthetic world. Evolution that may be incorporated into the design of the game but is also in a state of constant change and extremely dynamic. A stagnation in the growth of avatars (in a collective) has repurcussion s in the exchanges of attention, exchanges of virtual currencies as well as the collective attention that resides in a synthetic world.. Stagnation even in markets inflicts attrition that destabilizes the virtual world – a lack of attention could well mean the stagnation and eventual decay of the virtual world – this effect can be attributed to Illusory Attention and the decay of attention – for more refer Goldhaber (1997, and 2008). The evolution and advancement could be rapid such that a break from this world for even a short duration, may result in minor diasporic effects. A loss of contact with a community that has developed and evolved in absentia of the player-avatar and non-investment, either of time or resources by the player makes the narrative disjunct more pronounced.By narrative disjunct, I imply that the narrative of the player and the narrative of the community is not in tune, such that diasporic yearnings may be present even without the closure of the game world which is what transpired in Uru – The uru diaspora is documented very well by Celia Pearce and Artemesia in “Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in multiplayer games and virtual worlds”, 2009 MIT Press. This narrative growth and subsequent disjunct captures the essence of persistent worlds and evolution within them most appropriately. Thus, Synthetic Worlds as a conceptual term is limiting rather than liberating as Castronova (2003, 2005) implies, even with its conceptual failings at achieving a state of 'inter-connectedness'<strong>34</strong> with the Real World, Virtual World is a conceptually anchored term to articulate human activity in online gaming spaces, perhaps broader than synthetic worlds.</p>
<p>Avatar capital can locate the influences of attentional capital. Castronova (2005) describes “the accumulated experience points and skills and attributes [as] <em>avatar capital</em> ”, which is the advancement through specific actions resulting in the growth or increment of non-physical capital of the avatar. What are the non-physical capital of the avatar? Non-physical capital is dependent on the design and genre of the game or MMORPG oriented games will have forms of character development that as represented as levels and stages, which when attained allows for further progression in gameplay. Some of these include but are not limited to the attributes, the skills, experience points, all depending on the design and model of the game world concerned. Empire building games on the other hand would design a different set of avatarial capital altogether.</p>
<p>Avatar capital enables further progression in the game world and makes accessible quest lines<strong>36</strong>, virtual goods linked to those quest lines, and higher growth, ability to gain more from attacks and so forth (The Sway of the stars as a Elvish<strong>37</strong> race weapon grants additional gold income and experience points with each kill – largely for NPC attacks, i.e., Non Player Character attacks, other weapons<strong>38</strong> are preferred for PvP {Player vs Player} attacks). At this stage the attempt is not to examine the 'real' value attached to the weapon in a fashion that Castronova et al (2008) does, but to locate the attentional capital that is generated by the possession of such a virtual good which enhances avatar capital. Thus, an almost cyclical progression, I extrapolate this further when examining production. So, its possible to articulate avatarial capital as a small part of attentional capital and its collection in what I would term as attentional repositories. </p>
<p>Whereas the Physical Capital is juxtaposed as the virtual money or goods/items and rewards that the avatar earns as part of gameplay (and subsequent reinvestment of rewards), and is the distinguishing link between real and virtual currencies. The time that is invested in production of virtual goods and the subsequent investment in attention (as a currency) and attentional capital (as the non material investments – such as expertise and the abstract concept called experience) can be located in the growth in what Castronova terms as the Avatar Capital.</p>
<p>Castronova et al (2009) examines the virtual world/synthetic world EverQuest and attempts a mapping of its economy. The authors attempt to read macroeconomic behaviours using real world definitions and attempt an economic mapping quite similar to how real world economies are mapped, the research concludes that real world patterns are present in virtual worlds and in the ways and means that virtual goods are traded. They examine the 'reality' of a virtual sword [Footnote: Please refer page 686, New media and society, 5, 11, 2009, the examination of the reality of the sword, similar to the painting 'this is not a pipe' points to reality of value associated with that object, an object that is considered unreal, non exitent in many terms, Michel Foucault also comments on issues of perception, reality, and the painting and its paradox of Rene` Magritte's painting “the Treachery of Images” 1929-30 – Foucault's focus on representation and simulcura is not necessary to interpreting castronova et al's reading of virtual reality and the real value associated with a virtual good. ] . Are they 'really real'? Castronova et al notes through their study that virtual goods often follow real world patterns and thus can be mapped with real world usages and affordances. Items are classified and graphically represented as furniture, food, clothing, accessories, collectibles and so forth. Castronova et al (2009) by noting that all virtual goods had certain real world categories, armour - clothing, food – what avatars ate and drank, furniture – solid items avatars kept in their huts (homes, etc), and so forth, locate the relevance and psychological value of virtual goods, even if they serve no 'real' purpose. They also noted that virtual worlds scarcely held items that had “no real world uses or affordances”. This is incidentally reiterated to some effect in the AVEA report, which also notes that the demand for virtual goods are a result of the designed spaces (Hamari and Lehdonvirta 2010). The attempt by Williamson et al (2010) and Castronova (2003, 2005) have been locating the shifts in 'Real Life' towards 'Avatar Life'. Castronova himself dictates that such a shift towards virtual worlds is inevitable and as discussed earlier, and although speculative, has materialized and noted by none other than Consalvo (2007) and Nakamura (2009).</p>
<p>Returning to the discussion, the authors note that currency is representational (The value of the paper currency we use is backed by gold from the treasury of the government), thus items and in-world currencies also serve the representational purpose and in trades against real currency indicate the investment of time and labour. Such that the value of a virtual good, or in some extreme gold farming cases the value of an avatar and character, are dependent on the time and effort that has been invested in its development and the level that it holds in the ranking statistics. A virtual good such as a sword may then indicate value associated with the time it would take to develop the sword. For instance: Race levels in the fantasy text-based browser game Eternal Duel require opals to gain race experience, Opals as a gem acts as any other gem in the game except that it cannot be traded and has to be earned through grinding, farming, mining, and similar other means that would require an investment in a great deal of time. Higher race levels bring higher access for each of the six races that are available in the game – the game in question is Eternal Duel [henceforth E.D.] and Rising Era. The elf<strong>39</strong> race gets a higher healing rate after each activity related to production such as mining and attacks, whereas the human race gets a higher gold bonus, increasing the chances of each race to develop in its own course. The higher the experience level, the higher the chances of earning opals in attacks. Race weapons and armour provide added advantage in that any other activity of production would return higher returns for the investment of time. Thus, in the end, the value that is assigned to virtual goods where real money trades come into effect are: </p>
<ul><li>That they denote an investment in time and labour which is saved in the means by which most virtual goods in gaming are acquired, and</li><li>The investment in the focused cognitive resources termed as attention transacts as real value and by extension as currency. This would be one method of locating attentional capital.</li></ul>
<p>Attentional capital when it performs the functions of a currency is also representational in that the value of the item (the virtual good – including any virtual item that can be traded including avatars) depends on the market listings, the time (invested in development of that virtual good) and associated 'illusory attention' (a term borrowed from Goldhaber to situate attention and its potential and capacity to act as a currency), which is traded against real money. This form of trade saves the time that is otherwise invested in the production of this item, thus saving the purchasing party a considerable amount of time, which is transacted for real currency. Such gold farming trades are also called as RMT (real money trades – noted by Nakamura p.5 who cites Consalvo p.149-150, also refer lehdonvirta 2005, lehdonvirta and hamari and lehdonvirta 2010), the AVEA report classifies MMORPGs as the first genre of RMT. Why is the representational aspect of currencies necessary? Very simply if real currencies are representational and 'acquires' (however, that may be interpreted) a certain amount of 'reality' such that value associated with the currency and the item can be balanced and traded. It is clearly possible to interpret attentional capital having similar potential to 'acquire' real value and then emulate the functions of a currency that can be transacted for goods. But is attentional capital the same as attention currency (or for that matter attentional repository)? </p>
<p>I posit that Attentional Capital and by extension Attentional Repositories are dependent on the construction (visual and textual) of the avatar, in-group or out-group racial, ethnic, cultural, and other means of identification, symbolic associations with a particular identity or group, or a perception of a common shared culture, this is similar to constructing communities and Derek Lomas (2008) uses Benedict Anderson's 'Imagined Community' to explore notions of associations (through self-representation) that can locate attentional capital in social networking.<strong>40</strong> Lomas (2008) examines attentional capital that is built and developed through the elaborate constructions (including self representation) of profiles, through which there is an accumulation of attention (which is what I posit as the attention repository – a collection of attentional capital). The attention repository can be construed of as independent – associated to a player, or as a complex network of repositories that feed into each other through association, expression, and representation – as in a collective or a small group. Thus, the known/recognizable group identification of a particular player would mean a larger repository of attentional capital than a player with little or a lesser known group identification, even though that player may have a higher level of avatarial capital and physical capital to match. The repositories of the group would then feed into the attentional capital of the player, making identification (in-group, out-group, and so forth) easier and granting a certain amount of attention to the profile, which later results in an increased activity (and therefore, survival) in the concerned virtual world. On the notion of survival Goldhaber (1997) states thus:</p>
<div class="pullquote">“[P]ractically everyone must have some money to survive, so attention in some quantities is pretty much a prerequisite for survival, and attention is actually far more basic.”</div>
<p>In a similar manner, Goldhaber locates the relevance of currency (money) as 'the' essential pre-requisite for survival and suggests that attention is as relevant (if not more), I posit that attention in gaming (in all its capacities discussed earlier) is required minimally, as a pre-requisite amount, or what I would articulate as a threshold in the repositories for ensuring survival. This is where I propose that a threshold exits, which can be achieved or realized by the collection of attentional capital when there is</p>
<ul><li>a certain amount built in the repository through what Castronova terms as Avatarial Capital<strong>42</strong>, and </li><li>the threshold limit is achieved through other associations or connections to other repositories. </li></ul>
<p>This is where the discussion earlier on the connections of attention repositories comes into clearer focus. These associations<strong>43</strong> have their own repositories (not necessarily unintended when represented in player profiles)<strong>44</strong> and often these associations are capable of feeding attention into the players own repository. </p>
<p>The repositories of attention that I have explored and mentioned here are situated outside of the player avatars in other synthetic worlds, which is to say that there are – in some instances – multiple points of consolidation of avatars (and their repositories) to result in this threshold of survival being realized earlier without the collection of Avatarial capital. This is complex to articulate as well as demonstrate largely because it requires an in depth analysis, the data for which is nearly inaccessible (although, it is true that Castronova and his team were granted full access by Sony into their EverQuest Databases).</p>
<p>The multiple points of consolidation of avatars implies the consolidation of their attentional repositories of multiple avatars in multiple similar or different (in terms of genre) virtual worlds. In gold farming practices most trades are dependent on this threshold for survival as well as trades, for the threshold limit in the attentional repositories also implies the point at which trade can take place.<strong>45 </strong></p>
<p>For instance, avatar A is present on server 1 <strong>46</strong> but has in earlier periods taken part in other servers 1-'n' and these avatars would be A1-A'n', where n is the identifiable version of the avatar in any synthetic world regardless of classification.<strong>47</strong> Server 1 being a new game, avatar A will have a very short threshold of attentional capital and avatarial capital – assuming that, as yet, there has been no or minimal investments of time and labour in the development of the avatar that results in avatarial or physical capital. </p>
<p>The repository of avatar A at this juncture will be minimal in that particular synthetic world. For transactions of A1 avatar (that is gold farming for that avatar as a 'virtual good') there has to be an aggregation of attentional repository, which should ideally realize a threshold. This is achieved either through association or inter-connectedness of social viral networks, such that there are higher chances of survival, and in the case of gold farming higher chances of trade. In the event that there is minimal avatarial capital aggregation in A1, the possibility of avatarial consolidation at multiple points still exist. The pre-requisite threshold is achieved not by investments in A, but the investments made earlier in A'n' which feeds into the repository of A1 and survival is ensured. The repositories A1-A'n' would have a consolidated repository that enables avatar A1 to either initiate trade (a real world trade) or equally ensure survival rests in this consolidated repository, which has achieved a certain threshold. Note that this theory of multiple points of consolidation of avatars is not a common occurrence and is largely noticed in successful gold farming trades, and prominent players in any game server that incorporates avatar self representation through profiles, much like social networking profiles. The consolidated repository would mean that the threshold is reached at an earlier stage, than if the normal route of game play were to be taken where avatarial and non physical capital are built up.</p>
<p>To substantiate with a real world example, SARSteam<strong>48</strong> is present on at least 2 of the 10 Travian international servers and is familiar with 8ag.<strong>49</strong> Both having served in common and prominent alliances in multiple Travian servers for a considerable period of time, such that each ensure the others protection, if and when, by chance, they are present in nearby strategic locations in any server. In any new server <strong>50</strong> a chance encounter would mean that either player would list a PNAP<strong>51</strong> in their profiles naming the other. This connection takes place regardless of actual contact and negotiation for a PNAP and ensures that the other multitudes of players planning an attack are made aware of strategic connections that the player possess to his advantage thus enabling a further exchange of attentional capital against illusory attention. Players viewing the PNAP and alliance markings, tags, and so forth will cease offensive strategies. As Goldhaber (1997) states there is always an exchange of illusory attention in such cases<strong>52</strong>, attention may be seen as flowing in both direction when in actuality attention flows are unidirectional compensated by Illusory attention. Lomas (2008) suggests that attention flows are regulated by self representation through profile pages and in the gaming context the same is true. Self representation is deliberative (also noted by Lomas 2008) and by representing selective information an attempt is made at controlling the attentional flows from that profile. For instance, in E. D. listing a mine's quality in the profile page might enable other players to invest their time and labour at mining so as to make a profit and to 'mine out' the mine and thus also make a profit for the owner.</p>
<p>In both the instances above, the focus is on one or two players and in such an out of context state, attention repositories and the threshold of trade and survival do not seem relevant, add to this the sheer numbers of an MMO and viral connections in an ever increasing spiral and attention repositories and the threshold becomes an essential part of survival in gaming and trade in gold farming.</p>
<h2>Markets and Synthetic Worlds</h2>
<p>In this section an attempt is made to read into trading and markets for virtual goods in synthetic worlds and outside of it thereby attempting to place secondary markets and their assumed or presumed legality and/or some form of incorporation into the regular internal market of the game. This would make reading production and segregation of production more accessible later on. Castronova (2003, 2005) does not directly engage with describing the secondary market in Synthetic Worlds, although the market activities that he points out – such as selling game goods on online auction sites (p.16), GNP of Norrath (the country in EverQuest – Sony) being higher than the per-capita income of India and China (p.19) – are activities that connect the internal game markets to the external ones, namely the secondary market, or more commonly known and accessible as the gold farming markets. Are gold farming markets the same as secondary (as external) markets , how are they different from the primary (internal) markets? Almost all secondary markets are external auction markets such as Ebay, or more formalized gold farming trade markets such as Virtualeconomies.net, agamegold.com, myMMOshop.com, gamegoldcentral.com and many others collectively form the external trading markets and economic organizations in the real world that profit from virtual labour and investment (in time and real money). Gold farming also takes place through listings in from forums to social networking sites and gold farming in India largely thrives through such listings. Dibbell (2006) notes the emergence of brokers, traders, and a multitude of intermediaries in the professional transactions of virtual game gold. The AVEA report corroborates thus:</p>
<p class="callout">[It is] now possible for any player, no matter how experienced or inexperienced, dedicated or casual, to obtain high-ranking avatars and possessions simply by purchasing them from a website. Virtual goods were commodified.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>- AVEA report 2010 p.11</strong></p>
<p>The core feature(s) of synthetic worlds as Castronova puts it would be applicable to any immersive environment such that his definition is applicable to most games particularly the ones recently released such that those functions are no longer limited in Online Gaming but contributes to the Alone Together phenomenon as well. Castronova states these worlds as "worlds—the fact that they are radically manufacturable places that can be shared by many people at once." The manner of sharing of worlds from a distanced perspective makes it possible to read some synthetic worlds as offline games that are shared in online spaces not directly with other players but as hinted earlier through the achievements hierarchy that is constructed online, even though actual gameplay is strictly offline. For instance, the recent release of games such as Mass Effect, Dragon Age, The Witcher, and many more allow for a certain type of alone together phenomenon which takes place through forum posts, player profiles, and discussions. Note that although there is no online gameplay, similar effects of online gameplay are reflected in the statistics that appear online and create an achievement hierarchy regardless of online activity. Although attentional capital plays a role in such spaces, there is very little connections to survival and team play that it results in. </p>
<h2>Immersion and Immersive Environments - A Different Perspective</h2>
<p>Immersive environments can be considered as emotionally invested spaces, spaces where there is a investment in the character as well as the synthetic world. Ethnographic interviews point to immersion being a key motivator for role playing games. Role Play or games that implemented certain elements of role play.</p>
<p>Immersive environments are often described as the emotional investments that the player makes in the character or the game environment. Turkle (1995) describes role play as the practice of pretending to be someone else within a fictional space.</p>
<p>The reinvestment of virtual physical and non physical capital enables the avatar better access to production and production capacities. This is manifested dependent on the design of the synthetic world and almost any item can be assigned a value. Castronova (2005) notes thus:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The advancement system can be used to induce a player’s emotional investment in all kinds of actions. It can endow seemingly trivial and inconsequential acts—the slaying of a digital dragon—with significant personal and social consequences. Prestige shifts; alliances change; power and wealth flow in new channels; and, most important of all, people feel happier. In the historical record of MMORPGs, the willingness of people to acquire vast storehouses of truly arcane knowledge (the casting times of hundreds of spells; the order of birth of various gods; the number of iron ingots required to make a medium-quality dwarven hammer) has been demonstrated over and over. Advancement mechanisms turn the synthetic world into a place where value can be assigned to anything, and behaviour directed accordingly. ”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The emotional investment that Castronova notes through the investment of virtual and real resources in advancement, is probed into by Williamson et al. (2010, in print). Williamson et al suggest through their hypothesis that immersion may take on two (central) functions -</p>
<ul><li>that of a journey for the player to discover their 'true self', through a character constructed in role play as a space for role freedom, and <br /></li><li>as a means of escapism.</li></ul>
<p>On a superficial reading both hypotheses seem very similar, Williamson et al distinguishes these two features using an ethnographic approach. Players who engage in the first central element describe virtual worlds (refer Williamson et al 2010, in print) as a space where they can express which is otherwise socially constrained offline. To paraphrase a quoted comment, a player feels they can be anything they want in role-play whereas in real life they are who they are. Another player feels that their Avatar is similar to their real life but is capable of doing or being more (flirty, casual, and outgoing) than they are in their real lives. Williamson et al support their second hypotheses on immersion, namely as a means of escapism by using ethnographic studies. Players focus on the Virtual World as something to 'get away' from real life hassles, largely all comments that Williamson et al notes are positive, as such there is no indication if there were any connotations of addiction involved with immersion. Not an avoidance of real life situations but more in terms of relaxation, rest, a break and so forth. In fact Williamson et al seem to be moving away from such connotations by making this remark. Although I do not want to address questions of addictions and violence arising out of excessive gaming, these arise out of some of the discourses I point out. More can be found in the works of Florence Chee. The <a class="external-link" href="http://www.sfu.ca/cprost/docs/InteractiveConvergenceCheeSmithCh92005.pdf">article in particular</a> can be accessed <a class="external-link" href="http://florencechee.blogspot.com/">on her page</a>. Henry Jenkins and his stand on immersion has been addressed in an earlier blog post and would be relevant when addressing immersion in role play (and RPGs) in offline games.</p>
<h2>The Segregation of Production - Reading Nakamura and Racial Production</h2>
<p>Lisa Nakamura provides an insight into reading racial stereotypes in virtual worlds and posits that subjects carefully avoid real world racism, and racial references shifts into narratives of racial warfare in the imaginary world. Nakamura problematizes the informationalized capitalism that constructs Asian players as informational labourers and outsiders to the aesthetic integrity of the world of warcraft that the beauty of the game has somehow been polluted or tarnished by third world and fourth world informational labourers.</p>
<p>Nakamura addresses the informational dispossession of fourth world workers and gold farmers in particular and the real world racism that is inherently present in the caricaturisation that follows informational labour. She compares Consalvo and Castronova to discuss racialization, among other social evils, which as far as Castronova (2005) describes is ideally exempt from virtual worlds.</p>
<p>A strong focus on racialization in the real world being imported into virtual spaces and the connotations that accompany farming or for that matter how race becomes a derogatory insult in communities that have farming cultures is present. This takes the form of (almost) imagined racial warfare in virtual worlds and Nakamura attempts to locate this in light of Chinese (and Korean) informational labour and gold farming. The derogatory connotations associated with Chinese (and Korean) players as stereotypical farmers, and thus contaminated where the aesthetic integrity of MMO worlds are concerned (Nakamura substantiates using Consalvo, p. 6). Gold farming except for legally accepted modes are considered as cheating. Consalvo points out that cheating need not be approached as a flaw or weakness in the game design that is exploited or circumvented by players, rather cheating is an inherent part of gaming culture and is a necessary element that contributes to sustained immersion.</p>
<p>One problem would be the actual produsage of virtual goods that are dependent on racial factors that often separate production and consumption. This form of segregation of production on racial and accumulated avatarial terms would lead to a more nuanced reading of production on racial factors. Produsage is a term recently used in the New Media and Culture Journal to locate the production and simultaneous consumption on the Internet in the larger picture. In the virtual world produsage can stand for the production and consumption patterns of virtual worlds – a detailed report on the same has been recently published by the Advanced Virtual Economy Applications Project in conjunction with the Helsinki Institute of Information and Technology.</p>
<p>Is produsage similar to prosumption, the convergence of production and consumption in social media? Whereas produsage is limited to examining the dissemination of content and the engagement with creative, collaborative, and often adhoc content, prosumption is more applicable in the virality of that content through the networks that it flows through. I would interpret the former as being form and style specific and the latter architecturally informed in that the structures of technology through which content flows rather than the form of the content is given more weightage.</p>
<p>An examination of avatarial capital and its influences on racial production leads to the flows of attention that influence production processes. Influencing production in a systematic manner, attention as a currency dictates the prosumption of virtual goods. The AVEA report notes MMORPGs as the first genre in RMT (Real money trades). Although the AVEA reports literature focuses on 'Game Time' investments in grinding, mining, and farming – repetitive tasks that produce avatarial material and non material capital. A distinction should be made that the Game economy is not dependent on time factors alone, such that the investments of virtual and real money does not always translate into time spent in the acts of virtual production. Attention often mediates this process, such that the flow of attention would effectively enhance a player of low net worth (materially) and disenfranchise players who have invested time, effort, and money in the game and have a higher net worth in material functions. Virtual material wealth and non material wealth plays very little role in the enhancement and disenfranchisement of players and their respective investments in the virtual worlds. This is not to suggest that this is a common norm, production inevitably draws attentional capital in the automated ranking and listings that showcase this 'achievement', which also results in contest and conquest over command on virtual commodities. The AVEA report and works by Lehdonvirta (Ville) and Hamari (Juho) interpret the achievement hierarchy that those who have worked, deserve the fruit of their labour.</p>
<p>Avatar rights<strong>53</strong> and the Declaration of the rights of avatars are tied into the concepts of this achievement hierarchies that Hamari and Lehdonvirta uses and their materialization, if you will, in real value. Production and time are classically linked through labour and effort and to import that reading into a virtual space devoid of certain nuanced reformulations would be regressive. This is reflected in the AVEA report findings, although their trajectories are ideologically motivated. To posit that early MMORPGs had an achievement structure through which players steadily climbed the backbone of social and economic structure destabilized by the emergence of secondary markets is highly problematic. Firstly for it locates an evolutionary trajectory, the idyll (almost echoing of a Christian pre-lapsarian) state followed by the fall, so to speak, or destabilisation of the idyllic aesthetic beauty and 'integrity' by secondary markets or gold farming markets and resellers – Nakamura (2009) reiterates this perceived violation of 'western' aesthetics by eastern guest works and informational labourers. Secondly it locates all investments as a simple matter of time investment (which flows in either/both way), and to locate the connections between real and virtual currencies as simple matters of produsage or prosumption linked to time (whichever term seems more appropriate, i.e., depending on the form of content or the structure that enables its flow – naturally please read content also as virtual content, digital content, and so forth inclusive of virtual goods and services) is limiting and problematic. The problematics are not the input of time and effort but the flow of attention that dictates most gameplay formation<strong>54</strong> and strategy in any game that has a massive environment with a PvP structure. In intense-PvP-character focused MMORPGs such as Eternal Duel the avatarial capital are a) different parameters central to role play and character development and b) dependent on racial choices that allow for different progression pathways.</p>
<p>Nakamura notes that “China-men” are often equated with NPCs or non-player characters whose only role in the game is either grinding, or providing information and equipment. Grinding is a repetitive task, largely of killing monsters again and again to gain items, currencies, and experience in-game. By equating NPCs and Chinese players together, PvP attacks becomes nothing more than 'taking a stroll in the wilderness' and attacking 'monsters'. People who are profiled as Asian, either through their avatars or through their actions, mannerisms, associations and so forth (earlier I made an argument on in-group and out-group associations that facilitated certain forms of attentional capital flows, note that both negative and positive flows are possible). Such profiling along with informational labour dehumanizes the subjects as mere characters in a racial war. I posit that outworld racism, racist tendencies, and remarks such as that noted above and documented by Nakamura becomes only one half of racial production and game play in virtual worlds. Most fantasy genres are built on concepts of warfare with often racial connotations, such that survival, quest progression, and the accumulation of avatarial capital depends on the imaginary, constructed, and designed racial warfare in virtual worlds. All MMORPGs have some element of conflict, warfare which is often a part of design. Survival is not just a matter of survival in harsh game environment but also from other avatars. Survival also depends on the ability of the avatar to exercise command over other goods and services within the virtual world.</p>
<p>This ability to command better resources in the virtual world dictates the survival of the avatar and in cases of warfare (constant struggle is an element of MMORPGs and warfare is the eventual representation of that struggle) the more virtual goods that an avatar commands, the better its chances of survival. Although a commentary of Nakamura's text, an attempt is made to locate instances where attentional capital and its accumulation need not necessarily assist survival in the game.</p>
<p>Racial production or what I would posit as the production of virtual goods dependent on race in MMO Fantasy RPGs is dependent on the attentional shifts that are regulated by the games own internal market ranking systems. What the AVEA project report terms as the achievement hierarchies, for the hierarchy or ranking is not singular but varied and distributed across multiple aspects of development in a game. These hierarchies also facilitate shifts in attentional capital and its flows (other than self representation through profiles and avatars) and locate racial characteristics of an avatar and achievement hierarchies linked to race. For instance, ED ranks players based o their race choices, for all six races in the game with race trophies being awarded to the first three in the list. The trophies are much sought after for the bonus-benefits that they provide. This leads to a form of racial warfare, within the races - for the race trophy, and outside the races for higher achievement ranking. Quests which require the collection of one soul from each race for access to higher capability weapons have players in a constant state of warfare. Attentional capital here dictates the production, often racial production in that the high level weapons, armour, and other virtual goods that are produced are race specific. Often players tend to speculate and buy race weapons only to resell in the internal market after making enhancements to it, even though the weapon or armour itself is quite useless in terms of race compatibility. A look at the top seven race weapon internal market listings in ED and comparison with the players character profiles and race choice will show that four out of seven players have listed weapons they cannot use or equip. Race armour and other weapons have similar statistics in the internal markets in that most are not items of use by players but for speculation general compatibility armour on the other hand has very few players investing in major enhancements. Their efforts at producing these weapons and enhancing them is to speculate on the market and on possible players who will need them as they progress to level 300, and thus make a considerable profit by selling it, or renting it out through an in-game contract system.</p>
<p>In conclusion I also introduce the concept of class production and game world race production of virtual goods and items, such that character race plays a relevant part in imagined racial warfare but not so much in the production of virtual goods, which is driven by market demand and supply. Attentional capital and avatarial capital plays pivotal roles in the systems of production and I have made an attempt to locate them from different perspectives. I posit that attentional capital flows through the self representation in profiles and the ingroup and outgroup identitification along with associations to race, class, and identity which are not necessarily outworld alone. As Nakamura (2009) notes there are no real world races in virtual worlds but the image of the farmer has been associated with real world Chinese and Korean players such that it forms a basic dichotomy between leisure players and worker players, worker players who are dehumanized subjects similar to non player characters run by the artificial intelligence of the game. Attentional currency through many of these perspectives performs the role of a currency that facilitates or enables further progress and survival. Trading in race weapons and armour and virtual goods, that are of no other interest to the game character than pure profit, assists the collection and expansion of other forms of material and non material avatarial capital. </p>
<h3 align="JUSTIFY">References<br /></h3>
<ol><li>AVEA Project Report. (2010). The Advanced Virtual Economy Applications Project, Helsinki Institute of Information Technology, Accessed June 12th 2010. <http://virtual-economy.org/files/AVEA%20Project%20Final%20Report%208%20June%202010.pdf>.</li><li>Castronova, E. (2003). <em>On Virtual Economies</em>, in Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research. Vol 3. Issue 2.</li><li>Castronova, E. (2005). Synthetic worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. Chicago: <br /> University of Chicago Press. <br /></li><li>Castronova, E., James J. Cummings, Will Emigh, Michael Fatten, Nathan Mishler, Travis Ross and Will Ryan. (2007). <em>What is a Synthetic World?</em> In Space Time Play Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: the Next Level. Birkhäuser Basel (p. 174–177). <br /></li><li>Castronova, E., Dmitri Williams, Cuihua Shen, Rabindra Ratan, Li Xiong, Yun <br /> Huang, and Brian Keegan. (2009). <em>As real as real? Macroeconomic Behavior in a Large-scale Virtual World</em>. New Media & Society. 11. 685. Accessed 22 April 2010. <http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/5/685>.</li><li>Consalvo, M. (2007). Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Video Games. Cambridge: The MIT Press. <br />Cooper, R. (2007). Alter Ego: Avatars and Their Creators. London: Chris Boot. <br /></li><li>Dibbell, J. (2006). Play Money. New York: Basic Books.</li><li>Davenport, T. H., & Beck, J. C. (2000). Getting the attention you need. Harvard Business Review, 78(5), pp. 118-126. <br /></li><li>Davenport, T. H., & Beck, J. C. (2001). The attention economy: Understanding the new currency of businesses. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. <br /></li><li>Goldhaber, M. (1997). The Attention Economy: The Natural Economy of the Net.</li><li>Hamari, J., and V. Lehdonvirta. (2010). Game Design as Marketing: How
Game Mechanics Create Demand for Virtual Goods, in Journal of
Business Science and Applied Management. Vol 5. Issue 1. Accessed 21
May 2010.
</li><li>Lehdonvirta, V. (2005) Real-Money Trade of Virtual Assets: Ten Different User Perceptions. In: Proceedings of Digital Arts and Culture (DAC 2005), 52-58. IT University of Copenhagen: Copenhagen. <br /></li><li>Lehdonvirta, V. (2007) MMORPG RMT and sumptuary laws. Virtual Economy Research Network. <http://virtual-economy.org/blog/ mmorpg_rmt_and_sumptuary_laws>. <br /></li><li>Lomas, D. (2008). Attentional Capital and the Ecology of Online Social Networks. In M. Tovey (Ed.), <em>Collective Intelligence</em>, (pp 163-172) Oakton: EIN Press. <br /></li><li>Nakamura, L. (2009). <em>Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game: The Racialization of Labor in World of Warcraft</em>, in Critical Studies in Media Communication. Vol 26. Issue 2. Accessed 12 Feb. 2010 <http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/15295030902860252 >.</li><li>Simon, H. A. (1971). Designing organizations for an information-rich world. In M. Greenberger (Ed.), Computers, communications and the public interest (pp.40-41). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press. <br /></li><li>Williams, D., T. Kennedy & R. Moore (2010, in press). Behind the Avatar: The Patterns, Practices and Functions of Role Playing in MMOs. <em>Games & Culture</em>.<br /></li></ol>
<p> </p>
<ol><li>
<p class="discreet">The Virtual Worlds Research Project {VWRP} has conducted extensive studies and workshops on defining virtual worlds – three main prominent characteristics of which are depiction, space and analogic – for more please refer their report published and<a class="external-link" href="http://worlds.ruc.dk/archives/2891"> freely available</a>.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">The Attention economy was first implied in the works of Simon H.A (1971) who focuses on the exchange of attention as a relevant factor in the information economy – that the resource that is made scarce is not information but attention expended in its consumption is one of the seminal points made by Simon H. A. The term although was popularized by the writings of Davenport and Beck 2000, 2001 and Goldhaber 1997, 2008. For more details for the “<a class="external-link" href="http://goldhaber.org/blog/?p=197">attention economy hypothesis in brief</a>”.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Three kingdoms online is a merger of MMORPG and MMORTS with a focus on Real Time Strategy similar to Travian. World of Warcraft is a classical Role Playing Game Set in the Massive Environment where millions of players can join in a game – Which is what is termed an MMORPG. Eternal Duel and Rising Era are Text Based MMORPGs that have a smaller base and depends entirely on textual and not graphical representation.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Although similar to Peirre bourdieu's (Bourdieu and Passeron 1973) concept of human capital, it involves the examination of non material gains that are linked to an avatar, such as in-game experience, in-game knowledge and so forth.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Refer Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron <strong>"Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction" (1973)</strong>.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">The Virtual - Real Binary has been addressed in many disciplines in different capacities, concerning identity, presence, production, and labour. Here I skirt the actual binary but use it to lend credence to the virtual currency and by extention also the attention currency.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">What Castronova would like to term as part of 'the exodus'.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Nakamura and Consalvo note this limitation in different manners and points to the realization of Castronova's speculative predictions.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Either browser- or client-based.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">MUDs stands for Multi-user Domain.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">The term graphical worlds may be misleading, I use the term to denote the visually superior worlds that Castronova seems to imply as Synthetic Worlds, his main case study being Sony's EverQuest. Doing this I also posit that text based virtual worlds are active economically, even if not as much as graphical worlds, and the term synthetic worlds can be expanded to include the text based genre as well.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">As against NPCs or non player characters.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">And thus subjective in nature.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">By sustainable I suggest that immersion (emotional or otherwise) in the game world does not face massive disjuncts or breaks. A game that has a cohesive narrative architecture (please refer Jenkins works on narrative architectures) could be immersive.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">The 'massive element' is used to locate some central points of departures between RPGs and MMORPGs, evolution being one of them.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Also defined as gold farming markets, there are some questionable problems is definitions due to legality, concepts of cheating and so forth. Mia Consalvo (2007) approaches cheating as part of gaming culture and admits that even EULAs do not sufficiently address what activities and circumventions maybe regarded as cheating and how exactly that affects some players. Some players have the ability to pay for farming services, but that does not necessarily mean its cheating, since he is still investing labour (through a process of outsourcing of that labour) into the game.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">This term is not common, I use this term outworld synonymously with out-game, and as a antonym to in-game and inworld. The term implies activities within the game and its impact, influence, or some other variable that is outside of that game mostly in the real world. Thus, although technically, these terms are not synonymously cohesive - for the purposes here is used as such.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Although Castronova urges that there is an impact of synthetic economies on real world economies, I believe locating the attentional capital and its function as a currency within virtual worlds and its shifts and flows effected through real world stereotypes, uses, and affordances (as Castronova himself notes that there are very almost no virtual goods that do not have some form of real world categorization and uses and/or affordances), can be located through gold farming as a trade practice.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Can attentional capital also be read as linked to “all” non-material capital?</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Presuming that they are obtained within the game and not through metagaming, Castronova does not examine metagaming in this manner except to locate gold farming practices that he terms as secondary market activities.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Considering that social and viral networks and their effects can be often hinted at but rarely predicted beforehand. Without sufficient avatar capital, there may be very little attentional capital and trades in attentional capital that ensure survival in any game. As such predicting outcomes based on possible attentional capital can be unproductive.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Depending on how communities and groups are
organized in the game world. They could be limited to 60 as in
Travian, or above 200 as in Eternal Duel, depending on certain
circumstances membership is also often limited, a reason why
attentional capital of high performing groups stay well above the
threshold of survival. Almost all groups will have internal
communications, IGM – In-Game Mailing/Messaging, internal or
devised chat functionality – for instance Travian has a server
chat that accommodates players of the clan but is rarely used, Skype
is preferred and if not Gtalk and Msn is preferred means of
communication and strategizing as well. This is noticeable in
International .com servers and the English .in servers, as for other
servers this may not hold true. Eternal Duel also has chat
functionality but is not clan specific. Both games have their own
internal forums for the clan pages as well as game support forums
internationally and regionally.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Also termed Metaverse where factors external to the game influence the game – practices that are termed as metagaming.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Although at this juncture Bots and their usage should be explored, it might derail the argument on attentional capital flows. Automated programs are forms of circumventions that are often banned in the TOS and EULA of the game, but still used by many players. Multihunters or staff of the game working specifically on detecting circumvention arose out of modding and circumvention. Consalvo explores cheating to a fair amount and places cheating as a part of game culture, such that it allows players who are stuck at certain points to bypass the narrative requirement to complete a certain quest, do a certain activity and so forth. Therefore, she places cheating not so much as loopholes in design exploited by circumvention rather an essential part of a game in its ability to maintain, or sustain immersion.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Massively Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy is a subdivision of games that focus on Empire building in a persistant or resetting massive environment.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Technologies that facilitate communication and interaction are necessary for any forms of trade and activity to develop online. An ingame messaging system, a contract system, in-game chat functionality make up for synergized communities that can strategize better in such games.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">This ranking range depends entirely on the server and the number of people playing the game. The range denotes the highest investors in the game, in terms of activity, presence, and production. These number ranges are applicable for the international .com travian servers. The numbers would be much lower compared to Indian or other regional servers. A report can be obtained on Travian World analyzer but is limited to server resets – every 300 days for normal servers. <a class="external-link" href="http://travian.ws/">http://travian.ws/</a> - note that this is not the original travian site or in any manner supported by travian or their staff, but an external site that aggregates travian data for assistive gameplay.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Gathered from the Travian Forums and Strategy guides. The exact tools are numerous including user scripts and is not elaborated further.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Both are Chat and Instant Messaging Clients.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Policy here implies in-game production - From basics such as War and Peace to profit sharing, production sharing, resource collection for common growth and so forth.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Avatar capital is largely represented in the player profile page or in the in-game ranking system or external tools that pull data off the server to provide ranking and player search functionalities. One such case would be the extensive in-game ranking systems in Eternal Duel a text-based fantasy MMORPG, another instance would be Travian Servers which run on time bound resets and has extensive external tools to locate, plan, and strategize ideal locations, attack maneuvers, defense, farm finders and so forth. These systems act in the ways attention flows from particular activities that avatars undertake.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Attentional currency as the currency of survival is part of the paper
currently in a draft version and will be linked on my personal blog
when published.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Avatrial death naturally.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Castronova suggests that the term is more
appropriate as it indicates an interconnected relationship that is
not part of the real- virtual binary.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Quest lines would be particular pathways that a player character/avatar can choose for development depending on racial attributes experience points and so forth. For example, the Sway of the stars in a High eld RW1 (Race weapon 1) which is available after crossing a certain level (indicated by experience points gathered). Note that all of this is dependent on the virtual world and the design and plot of the world concerned. The example is taken from Eternal Duel.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Quest lines would be particular pathways that a player character/avatar can choose for development depending on racial attributes experience points and so forth. For example, the Sway of the stars in a High eld RW1 (Race weapon 1) which is available after crossing a certain level (indicated by experience points gathered). Note that all of this is dependent on the virtual world and the design and plot of the world concerned. The example is taken from Eternal Duel. </p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">The game does not name the weapon as elvish, rather it is just termed as a high elf race weapon. The word Elvish is not particularly popular either for some reason.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Which are also virtual goods. In the paper macroeconomic behavior in large scale virtual worlds, the authors attempt to locate if the virtual 'sword' can be considered as having 'real' value.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">or the Elven Race, one of the race choices when building a character. Race choices in character building has benefits including race weapons, race specific growth benefits and so forth, all of which are tied into the production of avatarial capital and indirectly attentional capital.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">His study is on social networks, particularly Myspace.com, but can be used to read into attentional capital in gaming.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">And hints at the reduction of identities into interests where self representation is concerned.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">I would choose to expand this concept and make it broader so as to make it applicable to other social networks and is not limited to gaming.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Such as ethnic, cultural, racial, to form an in-group or out-group association, or through common cultural symbols and so forth as mentioned earlier.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">I quote a recent debate with a few colleagues who suggested that I seem to suggest through my writing that the formation of these repositories are resultant of vague unintended actions on part of players and argued that the associations noticeable in the profiles of players are not always unintended but in most cases calculated and placed with deliberative intent. Without going into too much detail, I should clarify that that there might be the influence of the smart cow syndrome (for the lack of a better term for articulating this), where prominent groups have players who game for attention so as to be able to enter these groups (again I suggest that this would be a tactic for survival) failure to be associated with the group and other high level players often imply certain death (virtual avatar death that is). In such a case arguably there is deliberation and contemplation before networking or creating associations through profiles. For instance, a low level player would choose group A or group B – Z dependent on their position and the assumed allegiance and loyalty of the group portrayed through their own profile pages and thus their own repositories (yes this is illusory attention at work), and capabilities of the group to ensure survival of the player – this is deliberative. To return to my point there are often other messages and profile tags that the player uses to denote either strategy or tactics employed by the player and this I posit is unintended, a Gual character posting a Roman slogan on the profile, or some message indicative of strategy. So many troops killed in the first few weeks, so many players farmed and so forth, are unintended but assists in the inter-connection of these repositories perhaps a little more than group identities which are in constant flux (in worlds like travian from which this example is sourced).</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">assuming that it is non coercive and profitable.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Thus represented as A1 avatar on server 2 would be A2 and n number of servers to indicate A'n'.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">For instance SARSteam on Travian interbational severs would be A1 and A2, and on ED servers would be A3 and so forth provided that avatar is linked or recognizable to SARSteam, or any of its members.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">SARSteam is a prominent avatar of a player in
Travian.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">The authors Travian Avatar.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Travian servers reset after approx 300 days, where the endgame is the successful completion of a Wonder of the World.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">A PNAP is a personal non aggression pact regardless of alliance affiliations, such that in the event that two players are in opposing and competitive alliances a PNAP would mean that either alliance would consider non aggression on the listed player regardless of alliance stand on other players. Applicable mostly unless in the event of war when PNAPs are suspended. The notion of the PNAP is similar to the NAPs forged between alliances, except its between a few players. Alone together phenomenon occurs to some extent in such cases.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Goldhaber (1997) places Illusory attention in
perspective with that of a speaker and an audience. Through a reading
of Lomas (2008) I posit that a similar situation is present in the
self representation in player profiles.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Avatar rights are interesting concepts that question notions of property and copyrights and ownership.</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">By formation, I imply how game play progresses and forms dependent on attention flows towards a particular strategy in the game.</p>
</li></ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/gaming-and-gold/attentional-capital-online-gaming'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/gaming-and-gold/attentional-capital-online-gaming</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaGamingGaming EconomyInternet HistoriesHistories of InternetResearchers at Work2015-04-03T10:46:56ZBlog EntryAtmanirbhar Bharat Meets Digital India: An Evaluation of COVID-19 Relief for Migrants
https://cis-india.org/raw/migrant-workers-solidarity-network-and-cis-ankan-barman-atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india-an-evaluation-of-covid-19-relief-for-migrants
<b>With the onset of the national lockdown on 24th March 2020 in response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the fate of millions of migrant workers was left uncertain. In addition, lack of enumeration and registration of migrant workers became a major obstacle for all State Governments and the Central Government to channelize relief and welfare measures.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A majority of workers were dependent on relief provided by NGOs, Civil Society Organizations and individuals or credit via kinship networks. With mounting domestic and international pressures, various relief and welfare schemes were rolled out but they were too little, too late and more often than not characterised by poor implementation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The aim of this report is to qualitatively assess health conditions of migrant workers and access to welfare during the first COVID-19 lockdown. The primary focus is on the host states of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Haryana. 20 in-depth interviews were conducted remotely with migrant workers working in various sectors. Their access to welfare schemes of the Central Government as well as of their host states was ascertained. Emphasis was also laid on their access to healthcare facilities in relation to COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 ailments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The findings of the report showcase a dismal state of affairs. No one in our sample group received any kind of dry ration or cooked food in a sustained manner and, in the rare occasions when they did, it was woefully inadequate. Of the three states considered, we found that relief distribution was the best in Tamil Nadu followed by Maharashtra and then Haryana. Even the Direct Cash Transfer Scheme of the Central Government under ‘<i>Atmanirbhar Bharat</i>’ did not reach the migrant workers. Moreover, the migrant workers were apprehensive to report any COVID-19 related symptom due to the draconian treatment that followed therein and the crumbling healthcare sector made it impossible to avail facilities in non-COVID-19 related issues. Lastly, a case has been made for the creation of bottom-level infrastructures to further dialogue between various stakeholders, including associations of migrant workers, for the implementation of schemes and policies which can consolidate migrant workers as a relevant political subject. As migrant workers reel from the impact of the second wave, pushing for on-ground infrastructure and supporting community-based organisations becomes even more urgent.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india.pdf">Click here to read the report</a> authored by Ankan Barman and edited by Ayush Rathi. [PDF, 882 kb]</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/migrant-workers-solidarity-network-and-cis-ankan-barman-atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india-an-evaluation-of-covid-19-relief-for-migrants'>https://cis-india.org/raw/migrant-workers-solidarity-network-and-cis-ankan-barman-atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india-an-evaluation-of-covid-19-relief-for-migrants</a>
</p>
No publisherankanRAW PublicationsResearchers at WorkCovid19FeaturedLabour FuturesAadhaarHomepage2021-06-03T12:53:57ZBlog EntryAtmanirbhar Bharat Meets Digital India
https://cis-india.org/raw/files/atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india.pdf
<b></b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/files/atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india.pdf'>https://cis-india.org/raw/files/atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india.pdf</a>
</p>
No publisherankanRAW ResearchRAW PublicationsResearchers at Work2021-06-03T12:32:47ZFileAsia in the Edges: A Narrative Account of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School in Bangalore
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/routledge-inter-asia-cultural-studies-volume-15-issue-2-nishant-shah-asia-in-the-edges
<b>The Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School is a Biennial event that invites Masters and PhD students from around Asia to participate in conversations around developing and building an Inter-Asia Cultural Studies thought process. Hosted by the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society along with the Consortium of universities and research centres that constitute it, the Summer School is committed to bringing together a wide discourse that spans geography, disciplines, political affiliations and cultural practices for and from researchers who are interested in developing Inter-Asia as a mode of developing local, contextual and relevant knowledge practices. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This is the narrative account of the experiments and ideas that shaped the second Summer School, “The Asian Edge” which was hosted in Bangalore, India, in 2012. The peer reviewed article was <a class="external-link" href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649373.2014.911462">published in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies</a> Journal, Volume 15, Issue 2, on July 3, 2014. <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/asia-in-the-edges.pdf" class="external-link">Click to download the file</a>. (PDF, 95 Kb)</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">At the heart of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (IACS) project has been a pedagogic impulse that seeks to train young students and scholars in critical ways of thinking about questions of the contemporary. The ambition of developing an “Asian way of thinking” is not merely a response to the hegemony of North-Western theory in thought and research, especially in Social Sciences and Humanities. It is also a way by which new knowledge is developed and shared between different locations in Asia, to get a more embedded sense of the social, the political and the cultural in the region. Apart from building a widespread network of researchers, activists, academics and artists who have generated the most comprehensive and critical insights into developing ontological and teleological relationships with Asia, there have always been attempts made to integrate students into the network’s activities. From student pre-conferences that invited students to build intellectual dialogues, to subsidies and fellowships offered to allow students to travel from their different institutions across Asia, various initiatives have inspired and facilitated the first encounter with Asia for a number of young researchers who might have lived in Asian countries but not been trained to understand the context of what it means to be in Asia. Over time, through different structures, such as the institutionalisation of the <em>Inter-Asia Cultural Studies</em> Journal and the growth of the eponymous conference, the IACS has already expanded the scope of its activities, involving new interlocutors and locations in which to grow the environment of critical academic and research discourse.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Building upon the expertise and networks of scholarship developed for over a decade, the IACS Society initiated the biennial Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School, in order to engage younger scholars and students with some of the key questions that have been discussed and contested in the cultural studies discourse in Asia. The IACS Summer School that began in 2010 in Seoul, is a travelling school that moves to different countries, drawing upon local energies, resources and debates to acquaint students with the critical discourse as well as the experience of difference that marks Asia as a continent. The summer school in 2012 was hosted jointly by the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society and the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, in collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Studies at the Indian Institute of Sciences.<a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[1] </a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">For a snapshot of the Summer School, see Table 1 below:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Table 1. The 2012 Inter-Asia cultural studies summer school: a snapshot</strong></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Asian Edge</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Core course: Methodologies for Cultural Studies in Asia (2–11 August, 2012)<br />Optional courses<br />The Digital Subject / Technology, Culture and the Body (13–16 August, 2012)<br />Language of Instruction: EnglishHomepage: <a class="external-link" href="http://culturalstudies.asia/?page_id=86">http://culturalstudies.asia/?page_id=86</a><br />Organisers: Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore; The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore<br />Host: Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore<br />Co-organisers: Consortium of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Consortium Institutions; Institute of East Asian Studies, Sungkonghoe University, Korea<br />Course Coordinators: Nitya Vasudevan & Nishant Shah<br />Number of Students: 35 students from 12 Asian countries<br />Number of Faculty: 17 from 5 Asian countries<a name="fr2" href="#fn2">[2] </a></p>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Plotting Edges: The Rationale</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second summer school, hosted in August 2012, with the support of the Inter Asia Cultural Studies Consortium and the Institute of East Asian Studies, was entitled “The Asian Edge.” We decided to stay with the metaphor of the Edge because it allowed us to experiment, both conceptually and in process, with new modes of engagement, interaction, knowledge production and pedagogy. The idea of an Asian Edge was interesting because it signalled a de-bordering of Asia. The Edge is also an inroad into that which might have remained invisible or inscrutable to those outside of it. The imagination of an Asian Edge brings in both the imaginations of geography as well as the notion of extensions, where Asia, especially in this hyper-real and geo-territorial age does not remain contained within the national boundaries. Within the Inter-Asia discourse, there has been a rich theorisation around what constitutes Asia and what are the ways in which we can reconstruct our Asianness that do not fall in the easy “Asian Studies” mode of being defined by the West as the ontological reference point. Chen Kuan-Hsing’s (2010) argument in <em>Asia as Method</em>, where he argues that Asia is a construct that emerged out of the Cold War and needs to be deconstructed and unpacked in order to understand the different instances and manifestations of India, have captured these dialogues quite comprehensively. Similarly, Ashish Rajadhyaksha’s (2009) landmark work <em>Indian Cinema in the time of Celluloid </em>marks how questions of nationalism, modernity, governance and technology have been peculiarly and particularly tied to cultural objects and industries such as cinema, not only in negotiations with the post-colonial encounters of India with its erstwhile colonial masters but also with the different locations and imaginations of India. Chua Beng-Huat (2000) in Consumption in Asia similarly points at the ways in which Asia works at different levels of materiality and symbolism, creating communities, connections and commerce in unprecedented ways, not only within Orientalist imagination but in Asia’s own imagination of itself. The Asian Edge was also a way of introducing new thematic interventions in the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies discourse. While the IACS project has invited and initiated some of the most diverse and rich conversations around cultural production—ranging from creative industries to cultural politics; from cultural objects to flows of consumption and distribution—we haven’t yet managed to shift the debates into the realm of the digital. The emergence of digital technologies has transformed a lot of our vocabulary and conceptual framework, but we haven’t been able to translate all our concerns into the fast-paced changes that the digital ICTs are ushering into Asia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">With this summer school, we wanted to introduce the digital and the technological as a central trope of understanding our existing and emerging research within inter-Asia cultural studies. And the edge, borrowing from the Network theories that have their grounds in Computing, Actor-Network modelling and ICT4D discourse, gives us another way of thinking about Asia. As the computing theorist Duncan Watts (1999) points out in his model of our universe as a “small world”, the edge, within networks is not merely the containing limit. It is not the boundary or the end but actually the space of interaction, communication and exchange. An edge is the route that traffic takes as it moves from one node to another. Edges are hence tenuous, they emerge and, with repetition, become stronger, but they also die and extend, morph and mutate, thus constantly changing the contours of the network. The ambition was to refuse the separation of technology from the Cultural Studies discourse, introducing what Tejaswini Niranjana in her work on Indian Language education and pedagogy calls “Integration” (Niranjana et al. 2010) rather than “interdisciplinarity”. It was also to provide a different historical trajectory to technology studies, what science and technology historians Kavita Philip, Lily Irani, and P. Dourish (2010) call “Postcolonial Computing.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Asian Edge then became a space where we could consolidate the knowledge and key insights from the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies discourse, but could also open it up to new research, new modes of engagement, and new questions that need the historicity and also the points of departure. These ambitions had a direct impact on both the structure of the Summer School as well as the processes that were subsequently designed<br />to implement it.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">The core course: methodologies for cultural studies in Asia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Inter-Asia Summer School in Bangalore thus had some distinct ambitions, which were reflected in its structure. While it wanted to reflect the rich heritage of scholarship that has been produced through the decade-long interventions, and give the participating students a chance to engage with these intellectual stalwarts of Asia, it also wanted to reflect some of the more cuttingedge and future-looking work that is also a part of the movement’s younger scholars. Hence, instead of going with the traditional model where the pedagogues teach their own text, explaining the nuances and intricacies of their work, we decided to stage a dialogue between the existing scholarship and emerging work. The curriculum for the summer school was designed by Dr Tejaswini Niranjana, Dr Wang Xiaoming and Nitya Vasudevan, to form the first Inter- Asia Cultural studies reader, reflecting the various trends and debates around different themes that have occurred in the movement. The reader, which served as a basic textbook for the summer school, and has plans to be bilingual (English and Mandarin Chinese), introduced historical thought, critical interventions and conceptual frameworks drawn from different locations within Asia. The reader not only incorporated the scholars whose work has shaped the Inter-Asia cultural studies movement but also the formative modern thought that has been central to the social, cultural and political theorisation in Asia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">However, instead of inviting the scholars whose work has been central to the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies thought, the instructors for the courses were younger critical scholars who are building upon, responding to and entering into a dialogue with the work prescribed in the curriculum. The pedagogy, hence, instead of becoming a “lecture” that synthesises earlier work, became a threeway dialogue, where the students and the instructors were responding to common texts, not only in trying to understand them but also in the context of their own work and interests. Moreover, each session was co-taught, by instructors from different disciplines, locations and geographies, to show how the same body of work can be approached through different entry points and pushed into different directions. The classroom hours, thus became a “workshop” space where the students and the faculty were engaging in a dialogue that sought to make the historical debates relevant to the discussions in the contemporary world. They also showed how the older questions persist across time and space, and that they need to be engaged with in order to make sense of the world around us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Additionally, the Summer School classroom was designed as a space for collaborative pedagogy. The morning discussions around texts from the readers were followed by students presenting their work as a response to the texts prescribed for the day. Taking up a pecha-kucha format, it invited students to introduce themselves, their work, their context and their interventions and to open everything up for response and dialogue. The ambition was to build a community of intellectual support and interest, so that the students not only forge an affective bond but also a sense of collaboration and commonality in the work that they are already pushing in their existing research initiatives. The faculty for the day, along with some of the senior scholars also attended these presentations and helped tie in some of the earlier questions that might have emerged in the class, to the new material that was being introduced in the space.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">While this dialogue around new research was fruitful, we also were aware that there is a huge value in getting the students to interact with some of the more formative scholars whose work was prescribed in the curriculum. Hence, alongside the classrooms, we also hosted three salons that brought some of the significant scholars from the Inter-Asia movement into a dialogue with each other, as well as into a conversation with local intellectuals and activists. The first salon, organised at the artist collaborator 1 Shanthi Road, saw Chen Kuan-Hsing and Tejaswini Niranjana, discussing the impulse of the Inter-Asia movement. Charting the history, the different trajectories and the ways in which it has grown, both through friendships and networks, and intellectual interventions and collaborations, the conversation gave an entrypoint to younger scholars in understanding the politics and the motivation of this thought journey. The second salon, organised at the Alternative Law Forum, had Ding Naifei (Taiwan) and Firdaus Azim (Bangladesh) in conversation with legal sexuality and human rights activists Siddharth Narrain and Arvind Narrain (India) to unpack the politics of rights, sexuality, modernity and identity in different parts of Asia. The third salon, hosted at the Centre for Internet & Society, saw Ashish Rajadhyaksha (India) in conversation with Stephen Chan (Hong Kong) looking at questions of infrastructure, sustainability and the new role that research has to play in non-university and non-academic spaces and networks. The salons were designed to be informal settings for conversations and socialising, giving the summer school students access to the senior faculty outside of the classroom setting.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The summer school also wanted to ensure that the students were introduced to the materiality and the texture of the local, to understand the different layers of modernity and habitation that the IT City of Bangalore has to offer. Hence a local tour, charting the growth of Bangalore from a sleepy education centre to the burgeoning IT City that it has become, guided by curator and artist Suresh Jairam, was included as a part of the teaching. The four-hour walking tour laid bare the different contestations and layers of an IT city in India, showing the liminal markets, local cultures of production, and the ways in which they need to be factored into our images and imaginations of modernity and the IT City. Along with these, there were student parties arranged in different local clubs and institutions of Bangalore, to offer informal spaces of socialising for the students but also to give them a glimpse of what public spaces and cultures of being social might look like in a city such as Bangalore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The summer school found a new richness because two of the days were twinned with a workshop on Culture Industries, supported by the Japan Foundation, which became a pedagogic space for the summer school participants. The students had a new focus introduced to their work and a chance to meet other scholars and activists in the field from Asia, who presented their work as part of the Summer School. The creative industries workshop also afforded a chance for students to form new connections and collaborations with projects and research initiatives that were being discussed in that forum.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">These different components were thus designed and put together as a part of the core course for the Inter-Asia Summer School in Bangalore. Each component had a specific vision and was designed to offer different spaces of learning, pedagogy and interaction for everybody included. The core course was an overview of the diversity and exchange that are parts of the Inter-Asia movement. The course ended with a “booksprint” model where the students, inspired by the conversations at the summer school, were given a day to submit written work that would capture their own learning and growth in the process. The submissions could take the form of an academic essay, a sketch towards a research essay, a blog entry summarising key events from a particular conversation, or a narrative summary of the key points in their own research and how it relates to the conversations at the Summer School. While the core course was compulsory for all the participants, the Summer School also offered two optional elective courses, which the students could opt for after the core course was concluded. The optional courses were designed to introduce students to work and debates that had not yet emerged centrally in the Inter-Asia debates, but were part of their current conversations.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">New nodes: Optional courses: the digital subject/technology, culture and the body</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The optional courses, which lasted for four days, were a way of introducing the students to some new core debates that are emerging in the Cultural Studies discourse. The courses were designed to specifically concentrate on how the older questions and frameworks are being reworked with the emergence of digital technologies, thus helping students to consolidate their own work and also engage with research initiatives across different parts of Asia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The first optional course, entitled “The Digital Subject,” was coordinated by Nishant Shah and had lectures by Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Lawrence Liang. It proposed to account for the drastic changes in the relationships between the State, the Citizen and the Markets with the rise of digital technologies in the twenty-first century. The course proposed that as globalisation consolidates itself in Asia, we see changes in the patterns of governance, of state operation, of citizen engagement and civic action. We are in the midst of major revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, powered by digital social change, some headed by cyber-utopians specialising in Web 2.0 and Social media. Phrases such as “Twitter Revolutions” and “Facebook Protests” have become very common.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Instead of concentrating only on the newness of technology-mediated change, there is a need to engage with the changing landscape of political subjectivity and engagement through a reintegration of science and technology studies with cultural studies and social sciences. The course thus posited certain questions that need to be addressed, within the domain of cultural studies, around the digital: what does a digital subject look like? What are the futures of existing socio-cultural rights based movements? How do digital technologies produce new interfaces for interaction and mobilisation? How do we develop integrated science-technologysociety approaches to understand our technology-mediated contemporary and futures?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Through a series of seminars, workshops, film screening, lectures, and fieldtrips, the course challenged the students not only to look at new objects of the digital but also to ask new questions of the old, inspired by the new methods and frameworks that the digital technologies are opening up for us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second optional course entitled “Technology, Culture and the Body” was coordinated by Nita Vasudevan and had Audrey Yue, Ding Naifei, Tejaswini Niranjana, Wing-Kwong Wong, and Hsing-Wen Chang as instructors. The course began with a hypothesis that, at this moment in history, we seem to be embedded in what Heidegger calls “the frenziedness of technology.” Hence, now more than ever, it is important that we try to understand how the gendered body relates to technology, and what this means for the domain of the cultural. For instance, what are the freedoms that technology is said to offer this body? What are these freedoms posed in opposition to? How do we understand technological practice contextually, both historically and in the contemporary? Is it possible to have a notion of the body that is outside technology, and a notion of technology that is outside cultural practice?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The course called for a move away from the idea of technology as a tool used by the human body, or the idea of technology as mere prosthesis or extension, to map the different ways of understanding the relationship<br />between culture, technology and the body, specifically in the Asian context. It will involve examining practices, cultural formations and understandings that have emerged within various locations in Asia. The course engaged the students in closereadings of key events and texts, hosted workshops to present and critique their own work, and think of collaborative pathways towards future distributed research and pedagogic initiatives that can emerge within the Inter-Asia space.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Both courses had additional assignments that included close-reading of texts, practical field work, critical reflection and collaborative projects completed during the span of the course.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Tying things up: key learnings</h3>
<p>The Second Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School was an ambitious structure, and while there were logistical hiccups in the implementation, there were some key learning aspects that need to be highlighted.</p>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><em>Working with tensions</em>. Asia is not a homogeneous unified entity. There are several geo-political tensions that mark the relationships between different countries in Asia. While the academic protocol and individual interest in learning more can help negotiate these tensions, these tensions do play out in different linguistic, cultural and emotional unintelligibility, which becomes part of the pedagogic moment in the Inter-Asia classroom. Orienting the instructors to these tensions, and trying to build a collaborative environment where the students appreciate these tensions and learn to communicate with each other and engage with the different contexts is extremely valuable. In the summer school, we had students helping each other with translation, providing new contexts and critiques for each other’s work, and learning how to engage with the palpable difference of somebody from a different country. These tensions can sometimes slow the content and discussions in the classrooms, but taking it up as a collective challenge (rather than just thinking of it as a logistical problem where students not fluent in English need to be given tools of translation) made for a productive and rich learning environment.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><em>Ownership of community structures</em>. When young scholars from different parts of the world are thrown together for such an intense period of time, it is inevitable that there will be bonds of friendship and belonging that grow. We had debated about whether we should invest in doing online community building by creating platforms, discussion boards and other structures that accompany digital outreach and coordination. However, apart from the initial centralization for applications and programming, we eventually decided to make the participants owners of these activities.’ to give a better sense of the ‘digital structures of community building’. And it was fascinating to see how they formed social networks, blogs, Tumblrs and other spaces of conversation among themselves, making these spaces more vibrant and diverse, thus leading to conversations beyond the summer school.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><em>Infrastructure of participation</em>. The Summer School was an extremely subsidised event thanks to the generous support of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Consortium, the Institute of East Asian Studies and the Indian Institute of Sciences, who helped in significantly reducing the costs of registration. The availability of travel fellowships, subsidies, scholarships, and an infrastructure of access cannot be emphasised enough in our experience. Owing to the subsidised costs, the living conditions and the logistics were not optimal. And while the students were extremely cooperative and accommodating with the glitches, we realised that better living conditions and amenities, especially for young students who are travelling to a different country for the first time, are as important as the classroom and the intellectual thought and design. Finding more resources to ease the conditions of travel and living will help build richer conversations inside and outside the classrooms. Sustained efforts to find more funding for a space for the IACS summer school need to be continued.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><em>Selection processes</em>. It was wanted to promote the Inter-Asia movement and hence a first preference was given to students who applied for the summer school through an open call for application. The students were asked to have references from people who have been a part of the movement, and also to send in a brief essay describing their expectations from the summer school. We were scouting for students—given that the numbers we could accept were limited—who were involved in not only learning but also in contributing to the social and political thought of the Inter-Asia movement. We also encouraged students who might not have been a part of a formal education system but are considering further education. Instead of building a homogeneous student base, there was an attempt made to find different kinds of students, from different locations, at different places in their own research work, and with different disciplines and modes of engagement. Scholarships and travel aid were offered to students who we thought deserved to be a part of the summer school but did not have access to university resources for participation. The diversity helped bring a more comprehensive compendium of skills and methods to the table.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Integration and relevance. Younger students often find it difficult to deal with historically formative texts from other contexts because they do not see how this responds to their context or is relevant to their work in contemporary times. Efforts at integrating the different cultures, showing the different trajectories of thought and research within Asia, and at locating the older texts in the context of modern-day research were hugely rewarding and more attempts need to be made to continue this process of making the historical archive of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Movement relevant and critical in new research.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Planning the futures. The participants had all indicated that post the Summer School, they would be excited to see what future avenues for participation there could be. With this summer school, we hadn’t looked at modes of sustained engagement with the participants. While they did take the initiative to communicate with each other, the momentum that was generated because of these discussions could not be captured in its entirety because we did not have any formal structures and processes to continue the engagement. Especially if the IACS summer schools are some sort of an orientation into the IACS movement, then there should be more systemic thought given to how those interested in engaging with the questions can do so, through their own academic and institutional locations, but also through different kinds of support structures that continue the conversations and exchange that begin at the Summer School.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><em>Synergy with the local</em>. For us, as well as for the students, the synergy with the local movements, activists, artists and research was fruitful and productive. One of the values of a travelling summer school is that every summer school can take up a particular theme that is locally relevant and weave it into the summer school. For Bangalore, it made logical sense for us to bring questions of Digital Technologies and Identity/Bodies into the course. Even within the core course, there was an effort to integrate these as key questions that open up new terrains of thought and research within Inter-Asia cultural studies. The optional courses, which were introduced for the first time, were exciting and generated a lot of interest and engagement from the participants. Attempts at creating these kinds of synergies need to be supported along with new and experimental modes of pedagogy and learning.</li></ol>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Second Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School was a great opportunity to harness the potentials of the incredibly rich and diverse network that the IACS movement has built up over more than a decade. For us, it also became a playground where, inspired by the hacker culture and DIY movements that dot the landscape of Bangalore, we experimented with different forms of learning and knowledge production. Involving the students as stakeholders in the process, engaging with them as peers, making them responsible for collaborative learning, and creating spaces of participation and socialisation helped us circumvent many of the problems of language and cultural diversity that might have otherwise crippled the entire process. Pushing these modes of interaction and integration, while also creating an environment of trust, reciprocity and goodwill, is probably even more important than the curriculum and teaching, because these interactions create new nodes and connections, with each student and his/her interaction creating new edges that will hopefully shape and contribute to the contours of critical thought and intervention in Asia.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">References</h3>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Chen, Kuan-Hsing. 2010. <em>Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization</em>. Durham and London: Duke University Press.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Chua, Beng-Huat, ed. 2000. <em>Consumption in Asia: Lifestyle and Identities</em>. London: Routledge.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Philip, Kavita, Lily Irani, and P. Dourish. 2010. “Postcolonial Computing: A Tactical Survey.” <em>Science Technology Human Values</em> 37 (1): 3–29.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. 2009. <em>Indian Cinema in the time of Celluloid: From Bollywood to the Emergency</em>. New Delhi: Combined Academic Publications.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Niranjana, Tejaswini, et al. 2010. <em>Strengthening Community Engagement of Higher Education Institutions</em>. Bangalore: Centre for the Study of Culture and Society.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Watts, Duncan. 1999. “Networks, Dynamics, and the Small-World Phenomenon.” <em>AJS</em> 105 (2): 493–527.</li></ol>
<h3>Author's Biography</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Nishant Shah is the Director of Research at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society, an International Tandem Partner at the Hybrid Publishing Lab, Leuphana University, and a Knowledge Partner with Hivos, in The Hague. He is the editor of the four-volume anthology Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? and writes regularly for the Indian newspaper The Indian Express and for the Digital Media and Learning Hub at dmlcentral.net. His current areas of interest are Digital Humanities, Digital Activism and Digital Subjectivity.</p>
<hr />
<p align="JUSTIFY">[<a name="fn1" href="#fr1">1</a>]. <span class="discreet">A mammoth project such as the Inter-Asia Summer School requires resources, support and generosity from family, friends, and colleagues that can never be measured or cited in a note. However, there are a few people who need to be mentioned for their incredible spirits and the resources that they extended to us. Dr Raghavendra Gaddakar at the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Sciences and his entire staff were patient and hospitable hosts, housing the entire summer school for over a fortnight. The faculty, students and staff at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS) Bangalore helped in designing courses, finding venues and organising events that added to the richness of the summer school. Raghu Tankayala and Radhika P, both at CSCS were our rocks through this process, taking up a lion’s share of logistical arrangements. The help of the entire staff at the Centre for Internet and Society, who were there every step, helping with every last detail, and the Executive Director Sunil Abraham who lent us infrastructure and financial support to organise various events and salons, is unparalleled and I know I would have found it impossible to work without the knowledge that they would always be there to watch my back. All the instructors who agreed to join the teaching crew made this summer school what it became (a full list can be found at <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/iacs-summer-school-2012" class="external-link">http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/iacs-summer-school-2012</a>). Both Nitya Vausdevan and I owe a huge amount of gratitude to the IACS society and the Consortium, as well as the stalwarts of the IACS movement who put faith in our vision, and pushed us, supported us, inspired us and helped us to carry out the different things we had planned. The local partners who make our life worth living—friends and colleagues at 1 Shanthi Road and The Alternative Law Forum—have been our rocks and we cannot thank them enough for their support and encouragement. A special thanks to Daniel Goh, who apart from being a faculty member, also helped us put together the website to manage the workflow for the entire project.</span></p>
<p>[<a name="fn2" href="#fr2">2</a>]. <span class="discreet">A full list of instructors and the prescribed curriculum can be found at <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-overnance/iacs-summer-school-2012" class="external-link">http://cis-india.org/internet-overnance/iacs-summer-school-2012</a>.</span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/routledge-inter-asia-cultural-studies-volume-15-issue-2-nishant-shah-asia-in-the-edges'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/routledge-inter-asia-cultural-studies-volume-15-issue-2-nishant-shah-asia-in-the-edges</a>
</p>
No publishernishantDigital KnowledgeInter-Asia Cultural StudiesPeer Reviewed ArticlePublicationsResearchers at Work2015-04-14T12:47:38ZBlog EntryAs Equals: Frequently Asked Questions
https://cis-india.org/raw/as-equals-frequently-asked-questions
<b>Chiara Furtado was a panellist on the ‘As Equals’ series hosted by CNN since 2018 which aims to reveal what systemic gender inequality looks like. Chiara participated in a roundtable on digital harms and gender equality. </b>
<p>For more information, <a class="external-link" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/06/world/as-equals-frequently-asked-questions-intl/index.html">click here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/as-equals-frequently-asked-questions'>https://cis-india.org/raw/as-equals-frequently-asked-questions</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T06:54:59ZNews ItemAre India’s much-lauded startups failing their women workers?
https://cis-india.org/raw/are-indias-much-lauded-startups-failing-their-women-workers
<b>Recent protests outside Urban Company’s head office highlight the gendered nature of work in the country’s digital economy.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On October 8, more than 100 women beauty workers gathered outside the head office of <a class="link-external" href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/startups/urban-company-hit-by-protests-promises-to-enhance-partners-earnings/articleshow/86925941.cms" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Urban Company in Gurgaon</a> to protest against their work conditions. The firm, an on-demand platform for home-based services, initially responded by clamping down on protesters, threatening to block their IDs and inviting police action on them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After continued pressure from workers and media, the company reaffirmed its commitment to “giving a voice to the voiceless” and eventually announced some measures to partly meet workers’ demands.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This was arguably the first widely-reported instance of women working with digital platforms publicly organising to take collective action. A deeper look at their demands sheds light on the gendered nature of work under India’s much-lauded tech startups.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Women’s labour market decisions are structured around trade-offs between paid work and unpaid care work at home. They also face constraints around physical mobility, security and negative familial attitudes towards their work. Digital platforms have been touted as game-changers that will increase women’s workforce participation and earnings, because of the flexibility their model offers to workers to control their work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/F.png" alt="Tweet" class="image-inline" title="Tweet" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, far from increasing workers’ agency, platform models continue to reinforce gender norms and fail to account for factors that shape women’s work. The recent protests are a reminder that there is much to be corrected if work on platforms is to enhance women’s economic outcomes.</p>
<h3 class="cms-block-heading cms-block">Flexibility for whom?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The term “flexibility” can be understood in various ways. From the workers’ perspective, it is usually understood as the ability to choose when and how much to work. Most platforms, including Urban Company, advertise this as one of their goals.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, from the firms’ perspective, it could mean minimising input costs while achieving high labour turnover and service quality. Platforms deploy a range of strategies to manage workforce flexibility and match concurrent demand. Key among these is the system of ratings that determine the number of leads offered to workers and may also be used to coerce them into working longer hours and performing unpaid tasks to satiate customer demands.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In Urban Company’s case, workers’ ratings are determined not just on the basis of customer feedback, but also the rates at which workers accept or cancel tasks. This becomes antithetical to increasing flexibility – workers find themselves compelled to work longer hours to meet incentives and avoid penalties. Women who find work through the app have significant childcare responsibilities, and in many cases are sole earners in female-headed households.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Suman, a single mother working as a prime service partner asked us, “When my child has an accident, will I care about the ratings or penalties? I have to stay at home and take care of him. How will I take orders then if they keep giving me leads?” Workers often face penalties such as non-negotiable deductions from wages and permanent account blockages upon low response and high cancellation rates.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As Suman’s account illustrates, these penalties make it very difficult for women to take leaves for even short intervals. The list of demands put forth by workers also includes the ability to log out from the platform for longer periods on account of maternity or other personal obligations, without rejoining fees being deducted.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Another way in which Urban Company manages workforce flexibility is through the use of artificial and arbitrarily determined service categories. During the pandemic, amidst intense fluctuations in consumer demands and spending habits, the firm introduced five sub-categories under their beauty service vertical – classic, prime, silver plus, gold plus and lux. Classification of workers into these categories was primarily based on ratings, without taking into consideration prior experience or quality of work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For workers in the classic category, such arbitrary classifications without considering prior experience in the beauty sector or quality of work could amount to deskilling and undervaluation of their work. Workers who have been promoted to higher categories have shared several negative implications including higher costs for uniforms and equipment, increased distance between customer locations and reduced leads with higher commission rates. In effect, these categorisations further obfuscate the rationale for lead generation and upskilling for workers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The authors asked Urban Company about these and other matters. This article will be updated if the firm responds.</p>
<h3 class="cms-block-heading cms-block">Absence of support</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A key concern highlighted by workers is regarding the complete absence of infrastructural support necessary for dignified work. Women spend long hours commuting between their homes and multiple service locations where they receive orders. Many find it difficult to access critical amenities such as drinking water and toilets while on the commute and are denied these even within customers’ homes due to entrenched caste prejudices and discriminatory practices.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Companies also fail to support workers in case of emergencies, which has emerged as a key cause for concern among women who often work in private spaces such as customers’ homes. Workers emphasise the need for a human to respond to their calls in case of an emergency, rejecting technological solutions such as automated helplines and SOS buttons that leave workers to fend for themselves in case they are harassed by customers or in transit.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_F.png" alt="Abhiraj" class="image-inline" title="Abhiraj" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Beyond considerations of platform design and infrastructure, workers highlight the structural precarity that stems from the business model of platform companies. The “entrepreneurship” model put forth by companies does not allow workers to access the income security that comes with regular-wage employment, nor the control and agency that is necessary for self-employment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Media reports after the protests have lauded Urban Company for being nimble and transforming work relations in ways that are responsive to workers’ demands. What is missed in public discourse are the efforts taken by hitherto unorganised workers to bring the firm to the negotiating table with little external support, while also balancing paid work and care responsibilities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These movements are gaining ground across sectors to hold bigger companies accountable for extracting labour from workers while claiming to empower them. Exploitative practices across lesser-known platforms remain invisible and unchecked, with most continuing with business as usual. If workers’ collective voices are to transform industry-wide conditions, it becomes imperative to listen, amplify and act on their recommendations.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><em>Ambika Tandon and Abhishek Sekharan are researchers at the Centre for Internet and Society, where they study the impact of digital platforms on labour cultures in India. </em><em>Read the original published in Scroll <a class="external-link" href="https://scroll.in/article/1010724/are-indias-much-lauded-startups-failing-their-women-workers">here</a></em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/are-indias-much-lauded-startups-failing-their-women-workers'>https://cis-india.org/raw/are-indias-much-lauded-startups-failing-their-women-workers</a>
</p>
No publisherAbhishek Sekharan and Ambika TandonCISRAWResearchers at WorkRAW BlogFuture of Work2021-12-06T16:24:36ZBlog EntryArchives and Access: Introduction
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/archives-and-access-introduction
<b>The members of this research project team are Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto from the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore and Abhijit Bhattacharya from the Centre for the Study of Social Sciences, Calcutta. This intial post tries to outline the concerns underlining this project which will attempt to critically examine archiving practices and policies in India in order to conceptualize ideas about ownership and use towards the goal of the greatest public good; reflect on issues of digitization and access; and facilitate public conversations and the articulation of a collective voice by historians and other users on possible interventions in these institutions. </b>
<p> </p>
<p>This project argues that there is a pressing need to apply the questions and concerns that have arisen around the contemporary archives – of ownership, access and use – to the historical archive. The ‘conventional’ approach sees manuscript and paper archives solely as a source for researchers, or as a pedagogic appendage, or as a national legacy, held permanently in safekeeping either by privately held collections or particularly in tightly controlled state archives. In contrast, contemporary archives (often in a digitized format) allow users to catalogue, edit, comment and add their own data and thus poses some challenging questions to a conventional approach to the archives. Again, the potential access it offers to non-specialist users interrogates the idea of archival collections meant for academic consumption alone. </p>
<p><br />This project will consider the ways to conceptualize a move away from a relationship from both the state or knowledge economy driven models of archiving. Instead it will explore the possibilities that technology holds out to enhance control, centralization and exclusivity, or to dissipate it. It will also focus on questions of access; on who potential users are; on mutually recognized open access policies between institutions, and on finding interest groups and archive-related projects and other contexts for use of the archives. </p>
<p><br />Importantly, it will also discuss the embedding of the archive within the construct of a cultural legacy. It will attempt to compare the significance of the archive to that of the painting, or sculpture or architecture and the similarities and differences that can be cited inclusive of things that are not manuscripts and texts. <br />Towards this end, this project will focus on three sites: it will examine the National Archives of India; as well as consider Goa and Tamil Nadu as incidental territories which enable a view of distinct issues that emerge in the interface between technology and society in the context of archiving. <br /><br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/archives-and-access-introduction'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/archives-and-access-introduction</a>
</p>
No publisheraparnaHistories of InternetResearchers at WorkArchives2015-04-24T12:05:44ZBlog Entry